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MATHEWSON 
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Copyright  by  L.  Van  Oeyen,  Cleveland,  Oh 


PITCHING 
IN  A  PINCH 

OR 
BASEBALL  FROM  THE  INSIDE 

BY 
CHRISTY  MATHEWSON 


WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION  BY 

JOHN  N.  WHEELER 


ILLUSTRATED 


GROSSET    &    DUNLAP 

PUBLISHERS  NEW    YORK 


Made  in  the  United  Sute*  of  America 


ComicBT.  191* 

BY 

CHRISTOPHER   MATHBW9ON 


This  edition  is  issued  under  arrangement  with  the  publishers 
G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS,  NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 


Ubc  imicberbochcr  prese,  -Rew  Hot* 


INTRODUCTION 

INTRODUCING  a  reader  to  Christy  Mathewson 
*  seems  like  a  superfluous  piece  of  writing  and 
a  waste  of  white  paper.  Schoolboys  of  the  last 
ten  years  have  been  acquainted  with  the  exact 
figures  which  have  made  up  Matty's  pitching 
record  before  they  had  ever  heard  of  George 
Washington,  because  George  did  n't  play  in  the 
same  League. 

Perfectly  good  rational  and  normal  citizens  once 
deserted  a  reception  to  the  Governor  of  the  State 
because  Christy  Mathewson  was  going  to  pitch 
against  the  Chicago  club.  If  the  committee  on 
arrangements  wanted  to  make  the  hour  of  the  recep- 
tion earlier,  all  right,  but  no  one  could  be  expected 
to  miss  seeing  Matty  in  the  box  against  Chance 
and  his  Cubs  for  the  sake  of  greeting  the  Governor. 

Besides  being  a  national  hero,  Matty  is  one  of 
the  closest  students  of  baseball  that  ever  came  into 
the  Big  League.  By  players,  he  has  long  been 
recognized  as  the  greatest  pitcher  the  game  has 
produced.  He  has  been  pitching  in  the  Big 


2052619 


iv  Introduction 

Leagues  for  eleven  years  and  winning  games  right 
along. 

His  great  pitching  practically  won  the  world's 
championship  for  the  Giants  from  the  Philadelphia 
Athletics  in  1905,  and,  six  years  later,  he  was 
responsible  for  one  of  the  two  victories  turned  in 
by  New  York  pitchers  in  a  world's  series  again 
with  the  Athletics. 

At  certain  periods  in  his  baseball  career,  he  has 
pitched  almost  every  day  after  the  rest  of  the  staff 
had  fallen  down.  When  the  Giants  were  making 
their  determined  fight  for  the  championship  in 
1908,  the  season  that  the  race  was  finally  decided 
by  a  single  game  with  the  Cubs,  he  worked  in 
nine  out  of  the  last  fifteen  games  in  an  effort  to 
save  his  club  from  defeat.  And  he  won  most  of 
them.  That  has  always  been  the  beauty  of  his 
pitching — his  ability  to  win. 

Matty  was  born  in  Factoryville,  Pa.,  thirty-one 
years  ago,  and,  after  going  to  Bucknell  College, 
he  began  to  play  ball  with  the  Norfolk  club  of 
the  Virginia  League,  but  was  soon  bought  by  the 
New  York  Giants,  where  he  has  remained  ever 
since  and  is  likely  to  stay  for  some  time  to  come, 
if  he  can  continue  to  make  himself  as  welcome  as  he 


Introduction  v 

has  been  so  far.  He  was  only  nineteen  when  he 
joined  the  club  and  was  a  headliner  from  the 
start.  Always  he  has  been  a  student  and  some- 
thing of  a  writer,  having  done  newspaper  work 
from  time  to  time  during  the  big  series.  He  has 
made  a  careful  study  of  the  Big  League  batters. 
He  has  kept  a  sort  of  baseball  diary  of  his  career, 
and,  frequently,  I  have  heard  him  relate  unwritten 
chapters  of  baseball  history  filled  with  the  thrill- 
ing incidents  of  his  personal  experience. 

"Why  don't  you  write  a  real  book  of  the  Big 
Leaguers?"  I  asked  him  one  day. 

And  he  has  done  it.  In  this  book  he  is  telling 
the  reader  of  the  game  as  it  is  played  in  the  Big 
Leagues.  As  a  college  man,  he  is  able  to  put  his 
impressions  of  the  Big  Leagues  on  paper  graphi- 
cally. It 's  as  good  as  his  pitching  and  some  excit- 
ing things  have  happened  in  the  Big  Leagues,  stories 
that  never  found  their  way  into  the  newspapers. 
Matty  has  told  them.  This  is  a  true  tale  of  Big 
Leaguers,  their  habits  and  their  methods  of  play- 
ing the  game,  written  by  one  of  them. 

JOHN  N.  WHEELER. 

NEW  YORK, 
March,  1912. 


CONTENTS 

PACK 

I— THE  MOST  DANGEROUS  BATTERS  I  HAVE 

MET i 

II— "TAKE  HIM  Our!"  ci 

III — PITCHING  IN  A  PINCH  54 

IV — BIG    LEAGUE    PITCHERS    AND    THEIR 

PECULIARITIES         ....  74 

V — PLAYING  THE  GAME  FROM  THB  BENCH  93 

VI — COACHING — GOOD  AND  BAD         .        .117 

VII — HONEST  AND  DISHONEST  SIGN  STEALING  140 

VIII — UMPIRES  AND  CLOSE  DECISIONS           .  161 

IX — THE  GAME  THAT  COST  A  PENNANT      .  183 

X — WHEN    THE    TEAMS    ARE   IN    SPRING 

TRAINING 006 

XI— JINXES  AND  WHAT  THEY  MEAN  TO  A 

BALL-PLAYER          ....  630 
vii 


Contents 


PAGE 


XII— BASE  RUNNERS  AND  HOW  THEY  HELP 

A  PITCHER  TO  WIN         .         .        .255 

XIII — NOTABLE  INSTANCES  WHERE  THE  "IN- 
SIDE" GAME  HAS  FAILED  281 


Pitching  in  a  Pinch 


Pitching  in  a  Pinch 


The  Most  Dangerous  Batters  I  Have  Met 

How  "Joe"  Tinker  Changed  Overnight  from  a  Weak- 
ting  at  the  Plate  tdjhe  Worst  Batter  I  Had  to  Pace 
—"Fred"  Clarke  of  Pittsburg  cannot  be  Pooled  by 
a  Change  of  Pace,  and  "Hans"  Wagner's  Only 
"Groove"  Is  a  Base  on  Balls — "Inside"  Informa- 
tion on  All  the  Great  Batters. 

T  HAVE  often  been  asked  to  which  batters  I 
*     have  found  it  hardest  to  pitch. 

It  is  the  general  impression  among  baseball  fans 
that  Joseph  Faversham  Tinker,  the  short-stop  of 
the  Chicago  Cubs,  is  the  worst  man  that  I  have 
to  face  in  the  National  League.  Few  realize  that 
during  his  first  two  years  in  the  big  show  Joe 
Tinker  looked  like  a  cripple  at  the  plate  when  I  was 
pitching.  His  ' '  groove ' '  was  a  slow  curve  over  the 
outside  comer,  and  I  fed  him  slow  curves  over  that 


2  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

very  outside  corner  with  great  regularity.  Then 
suddenly,  overnight,  he  became  from  my  point  of 
view  the  most  dangerous  batter  in  the  League. 

Tinker  is  a  clever  ball-player,  and  one  day  I 
struck  him  out  three  times  in  succession  with  low 
curves  over  the  outside  corner.  Instead  of  getting 
disgusted  with  himself,  he  began  to  think  and 
reason.  He  knew  that  I  was  feeding  him  that  low 
curve  over  the  outside  corner,  and  he  started  to 
look  for  an  antidote.  He  had  always  taken  a 
short,  choppy  swing  at  the  ball.  When  he  went 
to  the  clubhouse  after  the  game  in  which  he 
struck  out  three  times,  he  was  very  quiet,  so  I 
have  been  told.  He  was  just  putting  on  his  last 
sock  when  he  clapped  his  hand  to  his  leg  and 
exclaimed: 

" I've  got  it." 

"Got  what?"  asked  Johnny  Evers,  who  hap- 
pened to  be  sitting  next  to  Tinker. 

"Got  the  way  to  hit  Matty,  who  had  me  looking 
as  if  I  came  from  the  home  for  the  blind  out  there 
to-day,"  answered  Joe. 

"I  should  say  he  did,"  replied  Evers.  "But  if 
you  've  found  a  way  to  hit  him,  why,  I  'm  from 
away  out  in  Missouri  near  the  Ozark  Mountains." 


The  Most  Dangerous  Batters         3 

"Wait  till  he  pitches  again,"  said  Tinker  by 
way  of  conclusion,  as  he  took  his  diamond  ring 
from  the  trainer  and  left  the  clubhouse. 

It  was  a  four-game  series  in  Chicago,  and  I  had 
struck  Tinker  out  three  times  in  the  first  contest. 
McGraw  decided  that  I  should  pitch  the  last  game 
as  well.  Two  men  were  on  the  bases  and  two 
were  out  when  Tinker  came  to  the  bat  for  the  first 
time  in  this  battle,  and  the  outfielders  moved  in 
closer  for  him,  as  he  had  always  been  what  is 
known  as  a  "chop "  hitter.  I  immediately  noticed 
something  different  about  his  style  as  he  set  him- 
self at  the  plate,  and  then  it  struck  me  that  he  was 
standing  back  in  the  box  and  had  a  long  bat. 
Before  this  he  had  always  choked  his  bat  short 
and  stood  up  close.  Now  I  observed  that  he  had 
his  stick  way  down  by  the  handle. 

Bresnahan  was  catching,  and  he  signalled  for  the 
regular  prescription  for  Tinker.  With  a  lot  of 
confidence  I  handed  him  that  old  low  curve.  He 
evidently  expected  it,  for  he  stepped  almost  across 
the  plate,  and,  with  that  long  bat,  drove  the  ball 
to  right  field  for  two  bases  over  the  head  of  George 
Browne,  who  was  playing  close  up  to  the  infield, 
scoring  both  runs  and  eventually  winning  the  game, 


4  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

"I've  got  your  number  now,  Matty!"  he 
shouted  at  me  as  he  drew  up  at  second  base. 

I  admit  that  he  has  had  it  quite  frequently  since 
he  switched  his  batting  style.  Now  the  outfielders 
move  back  when  Tinker  comes  to  the  plate,  for,  if 
he  connects,  he  hits  "'em  far"  with  that  long  bat. 
Ever  since  the  day  he  adopted  the  "pole"  he  has 
been  a  thorn  in  my  side  and  has  broken  up  many 
a  game.  That  old  low  curve  is  his  favorite  now, 
and  he  reaches  for  it  with  the  same  cordiality  as  is 
displayed  by  an  actor  in  reaching  for  his  pay  envel- 
ope. The  only  thing  to  do  is  to  keep  them  close 
and  try  to  outguess  him,  but  Tinker  is  a  hard  man 
to  beat  at  the  game  of  wits. 

Many  a  heady  hitter  in  the  Big  League  could  give 
the  signs  to  the  opposing  pitcher,  for  he  realizes 
what  his  weakness  is  and  knows  that  a  twirler  is 
going  to  pitch  at  it.  But,  try  as  hard  as  he  will, 
he  cannot  often  cover  up  his  "groove,"  as  Tinker 
did,  and  so  he  continues  to  be  easy  for  the  twirler 
who  can  put  the  ball  where  he  wants  it. 

Fred  Clarke,  of  Pittsburg,  has  always  been  a 
hard  man  for  me  to  fool  on  account  of  his  batting 
form.  A  hitter  of  his  type  cannot  be  deceived  by 
a  change  of  pace,  because  he  stands  up  close  to 


The  Most  Dangerous  Batters         5 

the  plate,  chokes  his  bat  short,  and  swings  left- 
handed.  When  a  pitcher  cannot  deceive  a  man 
with  a  change  of  pace,  he  has  to  depend  on  curves. 
Let  me  digress  briefly  to  explain  why  a  change  of 
pace  will  not  make  the  ball  miss  Clarke's  bat.  He 
is  naturally  a  left-field  hitter,  and  likes  the  ball 
on  the  outside  corner  of  the  plate.  That  means 
he  swings  at  the  ball  late  and  makes  most  of  his 
drives  to  left  field. 

How  is  a  batter  fooled  by  a  change  of  pace? 
A  pitcher  gives  him  a  speedy  one  and  then  piles 
a  slow  one  right  on  top  of  it  with  the  same  motion. 
The  batter  naturally  thinks  it  is  another  fast  ball 
and  swings  too  soon — that  is,  before  the  ball  gets 
to  him.  But  when  a  man  like  Clarke  is  at  the  bat 
and  a  pitcher  tries  to  work  a  change  of  pace,  what 
is  the  result?  He  naturally  swings  late  and  so  hits 
a  fast  ball  to  left  field.  Then  as  the  slow  one  comes 
up  to  the  plate,  he  strikes  at  it,  granted  he  is 
deceived  by  it,  timing  his  swing  as  he  would  at 
a  fast  ball.  If  it  had  been  a  fast  ball,  as  he 
thought,  he  would  have  hit  it  to  left  field,  being 
naturally  a  late  swinger.  But  on  a  slow  one  he 
swings  clear  around  and  pulls  it  to  right  field  twice 
as  hard  as  he  would  have  hit  it  to  left  field  because 


6  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

he  has  obtained  that  much  more  drive  in  the  longer 
swing.  Therefore,  it  is  a  rule  in  the  profession 
that  no  left-handed  batter  who  hits  late  can  be 
deceived  by  a  change  of  pace. 

"Rube"  Ellis,  a  left-handed  hitter  of  the  St. 
Louis  Club,  entered  the  League  and  heard  com- 
plimentary stories  about  my  pitching.  Ellis  came 
up  to  bat  the  first  day  that  I  pitched  against  him 
wondering  if  he  would  get  even  a  foul.  He  was 
new  to  me  and  I  was  looking  for  his  "groove."  I 
gave  him  one  over  the  outside  corner,  and  he 
jabbed  it  to  left  field.  The  next  time,  I  thought 
to  work  the  change  of  pace,  and,  swinging  late,  he 
hauled  the  ball  around  to  right  field,  and  it  nearly 
tore  Fred  Tenny's  head  off  en  route  over  first  base. 
Five  hits  out  of  five  times  at  bat  he  made  off  me 
that  day,  and,  when  he  went  to  the  clubhouse,  he 
remarked  to  his  team  mates  in  this  wise: 

"So  that  is  the  guy  who  has  been  burning  up 
this  League,  huh?  We  've  got  better  'n  him  in  the 
coast  circuit.  He  's  just  got  the  Indian  sign  on 
you.  That 's  all." 

I  did  a  little  thinking  about  Ellis's  hitting.  He 
used  a  long  bat  and  held  it  down  near  the  end  and 
"poled  'em."  He  was  naturally  a  left-field  hitter 


The  Most  Dangerous  Batters         7 

and,  therefore,  swung  late  at  the  ball.  I  con- 
cluded that  fast  ones  inside  would  do  for  Mr.  Ellis, 
and  the  next  time  we  met  he  got  just  those.  He 
has  been  getting  them  ever  since  and  now,  when 
he  makes  a  hit  off  me,  he  holds  a  celebration. 

"Hans"  Wagner,  of  Pittsburg,  has  always  been 
a  hard  man  for  me,  but  in  that  I  have  had  nothing 
on  a  lot  of  other  pitchers.  He  takes  a  long  bat, 
stands  well  back  from  the  plate,  and  steps  into  the 
ball,  poling  it.  He  is  what  is  known  in  baseball 
as  a  free  swinger,  and  there  are  not  many  free 
swingers  these  days.  This  is  what  ailed  the 
Giants'  batting  during  the  world's  series  in  1911. 
They  all  attempted  to  become  free  swingers  over- 
night and  were  trying  to  knock  the  ball  out  of  the 
lot,  instead  of  chopping  it. 

In  the  history  of  baseball  there  have  not  been 
more  than  fifteen  or  twenty  free  swingers  alto- 
gether, and  they  are  the  real  natural  hitters  of 
the  game,  the  men  with  eyes  nice  enough  and 
accurate  enough  to  take  a  long  wallop  at  the  ball. 
"Dan"  Brouthers  was  one,  and  so  was  "Cap'* 
Anson.  Sherwood  Magee  and ' '  Hans  "  Wagner  are 
contemporary  free  swingers.  Men  of  this  type 
wield  a  heavy  bat  as  if  it  were  a  toothpick  and 


8  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

step  back  and  forth  in  the  box,  hitting  the  ball  on 
any  end  erf  the  plate.  Sometimes  it  is  almost  im- 
possible to  pass  a  man  of  this  sort  purposely,  for  a 
little  carelessness  in  getting  the  ball  too  close  to 
the  plate  may  result  in  his  stepping  up  and  hitting 
it  a  mile.  Pitchers  have  been  searching  for  Wag- 
ner's "groove"  for  years,  and,  if  any  one  of  them 
has  located  it,  he  has  his  discovery  copyrighted, 
for  I  never  heard  of  it. 

Only  one  pitcher,  that  I  can  recall,  always  had  it 
on  Wagner,  and  that  man  was  Arthur  Raymond, 
sometimes  called  "Bugs."  He  seemed  to  upset 
the  German  by  his  careless  manner  in  the  box  and 
by  his  "kidding"  tactics.  I  have  seen  him  make 
Wagner  go  after  bad  balls,  a  thing  that  "Hans" 
seldom  can  be  induced  to  do  by  other  twirlers. 

I  remember  well  the  first  time  I  pitched  against 
Wagner.  Jack  Warner  was  catching,  and  I,  young 
and  new  in  the  League,  had  spent  a  lot  of  time  with 
him,  learning  the  weaknesses  of  the  batters  and 
being  coached  as  to  how  to  treat  them.  Wagner 
loomed  up  at  the  bat  in  a  pinch,  and  I  could  not 
remember  what  Warner  had  said  about  his  flaw. 
I  walked  out  of  the  box  to  confer  with  the  catcher. 

"What 's  his  'groove,'  Jack?"  I  asked  him. 


The  Most  Dangerous  Batters         9 

"A  base  on  balls,"  replied  Warner,  without 
cracking  a  smile. 

That 's  always  been  Wagner's  "groove." 

There  used  to  be  a  player  on  the  Boston  team 
named  Claude  Ritchey  who  "had  it  on  me" 
for  some  reason  or  other.  He  was  a  left-handed 
hitter  and  naturally  drove  the  ball  to  left  field, 
so  that  I  could  not  fool  him  with  a  change  of 
pace.  He  was  always  able  to  outguess  me  in  a 
pinch  and  seemed  to  know  by  intuition  what  was 
coming. 

There  has  been  for  a  long  time  an  ardent  follower 
of  the  Giants  named  Mrs.  Wilson,  who  raves 
wildly  at  a  game,  and  is  broken-hearted  when  the 
team  loses.  The  Giants  were  playing  in  Boston 
one  day,  and  needed  the  game  very  badly.  It  was 
back  in  1905,  at  the  time  the  club  could  cinch  the 
pennant  by  winning  one  contest,  and  the  flag-assur- 
ing game  is  the  hardest  one  to  win.  Two  men 
got  on  the  bases  in  the  ninth  inning  with  the  score 
tied  and  no  one  out.  The  crowd  was  stamping  its 
feet  and  hooting  madly,  trying  to  rattle  me.  I 
heard  Mrs.  Wilson  shrill  loudly  above  the  noise: 

"Stick  with  them,  Matty!" 

Ritchey  came  up  to  the  bat,  and  I  passed  him 


io  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

purposely,  trying  to  get  him  to  strike  at  a  bad  ball. 
I  would  n't  take  a  chance  on  letting  him  hit  at  a 
good  one.  Mrs.  Wilson  thought  I  was  losing  my 
control,  and  unable  to  stand  it  any  longer  she  got 
up  and  walked  out  of  the  grounds.  Then  I  fanned 
the  next  two  batters,  and  the  last  man  hit  a  roller 
to  Devlin  and  was  thrown  out  at  first  base.  I  was 
told  afterwards  that  Mrs.  Wilson  stood  outside  the 
ground,  waiting  to  hear  the  crowd  cheer,  which 
would  have  told  her  it  was  all  over. 

She  lingered  at  the  gate  until  the  fourteenth 
inning,  fearing  to  return  because  she  expected 
to  see  us  routed.  At  last  she  heard  a  groan  from 
the  home  crowd  when  we  won  in  the  fourteenth. 
Still  she  would  not  believe  that  I  had  weathered  the 
storm  and  won  the  game  that  gave  the  Giants  a 
pennant,  but  waited  to  be  assured  by  some  of  the 
spectators  leaving  the  grounds  before  she  came 
around  to  congratulate  us. 

All  batters  who  are  good  waiters,  and  will  not  hit 
at  bad  balls,  are  hard  to  deceive,  because  it  means 
a  twirler  has  to  lay  the  ball  over,  and  then  the 
hitter  always  has  the  better  chance.  A  pitcher 
will  try  to  get  a  man  to  hit  at  a  bad  ball  before 
he  will  put  it  near  the  plate. 


The  Most  Dangerous  Batters        n 

Many  persons  have  asked  me  why  I  do  not  use 
my  "fade-away"  oftener  when  it  is  so  effective, 
and  the  only  answer  is  that  every  time  I  throw  the 
"fade-away"  it  takes  so  much  out  of  my  arm.  It 
is  a  very  hard  ball  to  deliver.  Pitching  it  ten  or 
twelve  times  in  a  game  kills  my  arm,  so  I  save  it 
for  the  pinches. 

Many  fans  do  not  know  what  this  ball  really  is. 
It  is  a  slow  curve  pitched  with  the  motion  of  a  fast 
ball.  But  most  curve  balls  break  away  from  a 
right-handed  batter  a  little.  The  fade-away  breaks 
toward  him. 

Baker,  of  the  Athletics,  is  one  of  the  most 
dangerous  hitters  I  have  ever  faced,  and  we  were 
not  warned  to  look  out  for  him  before  the  1911 
world's  series,  either.  Certain  friends  of  the 
Giants  gave  us  some  "inside"  information  on  the 
Athletics'  hitters.  Among  others,  the  Cubs  sup- 
plied us  with  good  tips,  but  no  one  spread  the 
Baker  alarm.  I  was  told  to  watch  out  for  Collins 
as  a  dangerous  man,  one  who  was  likely  to  break 
up  a  game  any  time  with  a  long  drive. 

I  consider  Baker  one  of  the  hardest,  cleanest 
hitters  I  have  ever  faced,  and  he  drives  the  ball  on 
a  line  to  any  field.  The  fielders  cannot  play  for 


12  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

him.  He  did  not  show  up  well  in  the  first  game 
of  the  world's  series  because  the  Athletics  thought 
they  were  getting  our  signs,  and  we  crossed  Baker 
with  two  men  on  the  bases  in  the  third  inning. 
He  lost  a  chance  to  be  a  hero  right  there. 

The  roughest  deal  that  I  got  from  Baker  in  the 
1911  series  was  in  the  third  game,  which  was  the 
second  in  New  York.  We  had  made  one  run  and 
the  ninth  inning  rolled  around  with  the  Giants  still 
leading,  I  to  o.  The  first  man  at  the  bat  grounded 
out  and  then  Baker  came  up.  I  realized  by  this 
time  that  he  was  a  hard  proposition,  but  figured 
that  he  could  not  hit  a  low  curve  over  the  outside 
corner,  as  he  is  naturally  a  right-field  hitter.  I  got 
one  ball  and  one  strike  on  him  and  then  delivered 
a  ball  that  was  aimed  to  be  a  low  curve  over  the 
outside  corner.  Baker  refused  to  swing  at  it,  and 
Brennan,  the  umpire,  called  it  a  ball. 

I  thought  that  it  caught  the  outside  corner  of  the 
plate,  and  that  Brennan  missed  the  strike.  It 
put  me  in  the  hole  with  the  count  two  balls  and 
one  strike,  and  I  had  to  lay  the  next  one  over  very 
near  the  middle  to  keep  the  count  from  being  three 
and  one.  I  pitched  a  curve  ball  that  was  meant 
for  the  outside  corner,  but  cut  the  plate  better 


The  Most  Dangerous  Batters       13 

than  I  intended.  Baker  stepped  up  into  it  and 
smashed  it  into  the  grand-stand  in  right  field  for 
a  home  run,  and  there  is  the  history  of  that  famous 
wallop.  This  tied  the  score. 

A  pitcher  has  two  types  of  batters  to  face.  One 
is  the  man  who  is  always  thinking  and  guessing 
and  waiting,  trying  to  get  the  pitcher  in  the  hole. 
Evers,  of  the  Cubs,  is  that  sort.  They  tell  me 
that  "Ty"  Cobb  of  Detroit  is  the  most  highly 
developed  of  this  type  of  hitter.  I  have  never 
seen  him  play.  Then  the  other  kind  is  the  natural 
slugger,  who  does  not  wait  for  anything,  and  who 
could  not  outguess  a  pitcher  if  he  did.  The  brainy 
man  is  the  harder  for  a  pitcher  to  face  because  he 
is  a  constant  source  of  worry. 

There  are  two  ways  of  f ooling  a  batter.  One  is 
literally  to  "mix  'em  up,"  and  the  other  is  to  keep 
feeding  him  the  same  sort  of  a  ball,  but  to  induce 
him  to  think  that  something  else  is  coming.  When 
a  brainy  man  is  at  the  bat,  he  is  always  trying  to 
figure  out  what  to  expect.  If  he  knows,  then  his 
chances  of  getting  a  hit  are  greatly  increased.  For 
instance,  if  a  batter  has  two  balls  and  two  strikes 
on  him,  he  naturally  concludes  that  the  pitcher 
will  throw  him  a  curve  ball,  and  prepares  for  it 


14  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

Big  League  ball-players  recognize  only  two  kinds  of 
pitched  balls — the  curve  and  the  straight  one. 

When  a  catcher  in  the  Big  League  signals  for 
a  curved  ball,  he  means  a  drop,  and,  after  handling 
a  certain  pitcher  for  a  time,  he  gets  to  know  just 
how  much  the  ball  is  going  to  curve.  That  is 
why  the  one  catcher  receives  for  the  same  pitcher 
so  regularly,  because  they  get  to  work  together 
harmoniously.  "Chief"  Meyers,  the  big  Indian 
catcher  on  the  Giants,  understands  my  style  so 
well  that  in  some  games  he  hardly  has  to  give  a 
sign.  But,  oddly  enough,  he  could  never  catch 
Raymond  because  he  did  not  like  to  handle  the 
spit  ball,  a  hard  delivery  to  receive,  and  Raymond 
and  he  could  not  get  along  together  as  a  battery. 
They  would  cross  each  other.  But  Arthur  Wilson 
caught  Raymond  almost  perfectly.  This  explains 
the  loss  of  effectiveness  of  many  pitchers  when  a 
certain  catcher  is  laid  up  or  out  of  the  game. 

"Cy"  Seymour,  formerly  the  outfielder  of  the 
Giants,  was  one  of  the  hardest  batters  I  ever  had 
to  pitch  against  when  he  was  with  the  Cincinnati 
club  and  going  at  the  top  of  his  stride.  He  liked 
a  curved  ball,  and  could  hit  it  hard  and  far,  and  was 
always  waiting  for  it.  He  was  very  clever  at  out- 


The  Most  Dangerous  Batters       15 

guessing  a  pitcher  and  being  able  to  conclude  what 
was  coming.  For  a  long  time  whenever  I  pitched 
against  him  I  had  "mixed  'em  up"  literally,  hand- 
ing him  first  a  fast  ball  and  then  a  slow  curve  and 
so  on,  trying  to  fool  him  in  this  way.  But  one 
day  we  were  playing  in  Cincinnati,  and  I  decided 
to  keep  delivering  the  same  kind  of  a  ball,  that 
old  fast  one  around  his  neck,  and  to  try  to  induce 
him  to  believe  that  a  curve  was  coming.  I  pitched 
him  nothing  but  fast  ones  that  day,  and  he  was 
always  waiting  for  a  curve.  The  result  was  that  I 
had  him  in  the  hole  all  the  time,  and  I  struck  him 
out  three  times.  He  has  never  gotten  over  it. 
Only  recently  I  saw  Seymour,  and  he  said: 

"Matty,  you  are  the  only  man  that  ever  struck 
me  out  three  times  in  the  same  game." 

He  soon  guessed,  however,  that  I  was  not  really 
mixing  them  up,  and  then  I  had  to  switch  my 
style  again  for  him. 

Some  pitchers  talk  to  batters  a  great  deal, 
hoping  to  get  their  minds  off  the  game  in  this  way, 
and  thus  be  able  to  sneak  strikes  over.  But  I  find 
that  talking  to  a  batter  disconcerts  me  almost  as 
much  as  it  does  him,  and  I  seldom  do  it.  Repartee 
is  not  my  line  anyway. 


16  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

Bender  talked  to  the  Giant  players  all  through 
that  first  game  in  the  1911  world's  series,  the  one 
in  which  he  wore  the  smile,  probably  because  he 
was  a  pitcher  old  in  the  game  and  several  of  the 
younger  men  on  the  New  York  team  acted  as  if 
they  were  nervous.  Snodgrass  and  the  Indian 
kept  up  a  running  fire  of  small  talk  every  time 
that  the  Giants'  centre-fielder  came  to  the  plate. 

Snodgrass  got  hit  by  pitched  balls  twice,  and  this 
seemed  to  worry  Bender.  When  the  New  York 
centre-fielder  came  to  the  bat  in  the  eighth  inning, 
the  Indian  showed  his  even  teeth  in  the  chronic 
grin  and  greeted  Snodgrass  in  this  way: 

"Look  out,  Freddie,  you  don't  get  hit  this 
time." 

Then  Bender  wound  up  and  with  all  his  speed 
drove  the  ball  straight  at  Snodgrass's  head,  and 
Bender  had  more  speed  in  that  first  game  than 
I  ever  saw  him  use  before.  Snodgrass  dodged, 
and  the  ball  drove  into  Thomas's  glove.  This 
pitching  the  first  ball  at  the  head  of  a  batter  is  an 
old  trick  of  pitchers  when  they  think  a  player 
intends  to  get  hit  purposely  or  that  he  is  crowding 
the  plate. 

"If  you  can't  push  'em  over  better  than  that," 


The  Most  Dangerous  Batters       17 

retorted  Snodgrass,  "I  won't  need  to  get  hit. 
Let 's  see  your  fast  one  now." 

"Try  this  one,"  suggested  Bender,  as  he  pitched 
another  fast  one  that  cut  the  heart  of  the  plate. 
Snodgrass  swung  and  hit  nothing  but  the  air.  The 
old  atmosphere  was  very  much  mauled  by  bats  in 
that  game  anyway. 

"  You  missed  that  one  a  mile,  Freddie,"  chuckled 
the  Indian,  with  his  grin. 

Snodgrass  eventually  struck  out  and  then 
Bender  broke  into  a  laugh. 

"You  ain't  a  batter,  Freddie,"  exclaimed  the 
Indian,  as  he  walked  to  the  bench.  "You're  a 
backstop.  You  can  never  get  anywhere  without 
being  hit." 

If  a  pitcher  is  going  to  talk  to  a  batter,  he  must 
size  up  his  man.  An  irritable,  nervous  young 
player  often  will  fall  for  the  conversation,  but 
most  seasoned  hitters  will  not  answer  back.  The 
Athletics,  other  than  Bender,  will  not  talk  in  a 
game.  We  tried  to  get  after  them  in  the  first 
contest  in  1911,  and  we  could  not  get  a  rise  out  of 
one  of  them,  except  when  Snodgrass  spiked  Baker, 
and  I  want  to  say  right  here  that  this  much  dis- 
cussed incident  was  accidental.  Baker  was  block- 


1 8  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

ing  Snodgrass  out,  and  the  New  York  player  had 
a  perfect  right  to  the  base  line. 

Sherwood  Magee  of  the  Philadelphia  National 
League  team  is  one  of  the  hardest  batters  that  I 
ever  have  had  to  face,  because  he  has  a  great  eye, 
and  is  of  the  type  of  free  swingers  who  take  a  mad 
wallop  at  the  ball,  and  are  always  liable  to  break 
up  a  game  with  a  long  drive.  Just  once  I  talked 
to  him  when  he  was  at  the  bat,  more  because  we 
were  both  worked  up  than  for  any  other  reason,  and 
he  came  out  second  best.  It  was  while  the  Giants 
were  playing  at  American  League  Park  in  1911 
after  the  old  Polo  Grounds  had  burned.  Wel- 
chonce,  who  was  the  centre-fielder  for  the  Phillies 
at  the  time,  hit  a  slow  one  down  the  first  base  line, 
and  I  ran  over  to  field  the  ball.  I  picked  it  up  as 
the  runner  arrived  and  had  no  time  to  straighten 
up  to  dodge  him.  So  I  struck  out  my  shoulder 
and  he  ran  into  it.  There  was  no  other  way  to 
make  the  play,  but  I  guess  it  looked  bad  from  the 
stand,  because  Welchonce  fell  down. 

Magee  came  up  to  bat  next,  threw  his  hat  on 
the  ground,  and  started  to  call  me  names.  He  is 
bad  when  irritated — and  tolerably  easy  to  irritate, 
as  shown  by  the  way  in  which  he  knocked  down 


The  Most  Dangerous  Batters        19 

Finnegan,  the  umpire,  last  season  because  their 
ideas  on  a  strike  differed  slightly.  I  replied  on  that 
occasion,  but  remembered  to  keep  the  ball  away 
from  the  centre  of  the  plate.  That  is  about  all  I 
did  do,  but  he  was  more  wrought  up  than  I  and 
hit  only  a  slow  grounder  to  the  infield.  He  was 
out  by  several  feet.  He  took  a  wild  slide  at  the 
bag,  however,  feet  first,  in  what  looked  like  an 
attempt  to  spike  Merkle.  We  talked  some  more 
after  that,  but  it  has  all  been  forgotten  now. 

To  be  a  successful  pitcher  in  the  Big  League,  a 
man  must  have  the  head  and  the  arm.  When  I 
first  joined  the  Giants,  I  had  what  is  known  as  the 
"old  round-house  curve,"  which  is  no  more  than 
a  big,  slow  outdrop.  I  had  been  fooling  them  in 
the  minor  leagues  with  it,  and  I  was  somewhat 
chagrined  when  George  Davis,  then  the  manager  of 
the  club,  came  to  me  and  told  me  to  forget  the 
curve,  as  it  would  be  of  no  use.  It  was  then  that 
I  began  to  develop  my  drop  ball. 

A  pitcher  must  watch  all  the  time  for  any  little 
unconscious  motion  before  he  delivers  the  ball. 
If  a  base  runner  can  guess  just  when  he  is  going  to 
pitch,  he  can  get  a  much  better  start.  Drucke 
used  to  have  a  little  motion  with  his  foot  just  be- 


20  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

fore  he  pitched,  of  which  he  liimself  was  entirely 
unconscious,  but  the  other  clubs  got  on  to  it  and 
stole  bases  on  him  wildly.  McGraw  has  since 
broken  him  of  it. 

The  Athletics  say  that  I  make  a  motion  peculiar 
to  the  fade-away.  Some  spit-ball  pitchers  announce 
when  they  are  going  to  throw  a  moist  one  by  look- 
ing at  the  ball  as  they  dampen  it.  At  other  times, 
when  they  "stall,"  they  do  not  look  at  the  ball. 
The  Big  League  batter  is  watching  for  all  these 
little  things  and,  if  a  pitcher  is  not  careful,  he  will 
find  a  lot  of  men  who  are  hard  to  pitch  to.  There 
are  plenty  anyway,  and,  as  a  man  grows  older,  this 
number  increases  season  by  season. 


n 

"Take  Him  Out" 

Many  a  Pitcher's  Heart  has  been  Broken  by  the  Cry 
from  the  Stands,  "  Take  Him  Out  "—Russell  Ford 
of  the  New  York  Yankees  was  Once  Beaten  by  a 
Few  Foolish  Words  Whispered  into  the  Batter's 
Ear  at  a  Critical  Moment— Why  "  Rube  "  Mar- 
guard  Failed  for  Two  Years  to  be  a  Big  Leaguer — 
The  Art  of  Breaking  a  Pitcher  into  Fast  Company. 

A  PITCHER  is  in  a  tight  game,  and  the  batter 
**•  makes  a  hit.  Another  follows  and  some  fan 
back  in  the  stand  cries  in  stentorian  tones: 

"Take  him  out!" 

It  is  the  dirge  of  baseball  which  has  broken  the 
hearts  of  pitchers  ever  since  the  game  began  and 
will  continue  to  do  so  as  long  as  it  lives.  Another 
fan  takes  up  the  shout,  and  another,  and  another, 
until  it  is  a  chorus. 

"Take  him  out  1    Take  him  out!   Take  him  out!" 

21 


22  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

The  pitcher  has  to  grin,  but  that  constant  cry 
is  wearing  on  nerves  strung  to  the  breaking  point. 
The  crowd  is  against  him,  and  the  next  batter  hits, 
and  a  run  scores.  The  manager  stops  the  game, 
beckons  to  the  pitcher  from  the  bench,  and  he  has 
to  walk  away  from  the  box,  facing  the  crowd — 
not  the  team — which  has  beaten  him.  It  is  the 
psychology  of  baseball. 

Some  foolish  words  once  whispered  into  the 
ear  of  a  batter  by  a  clever  manager  in  the  crisis 
of  one  of  the  closest  games  ever  played  in  baseball 
turned  the  tide  and  unbalanced  a  pitcher  who  had 
been  working  like  a  perfectly  adjusted  machine 
through  seven  terrific  innings.  That  is  also  the 
"psychology  of  pitching."  The  man  wasn't 
beaten  because  he  weakened,  because  he  lost  his 
grip,  because  of  any  physical  deficiency,  but 
because  some  foolish  words — words  that  meant 
nothing,  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  game — had 
upset  his  mental  attitude. 

The  game  was  the  first  one  played  between  the 
Giants  and  the  Yankees  in  the  post-season  series 
of  1910,  the  batter  was  Bridwell,  the  manager 
was  John  McGraw,  and  the  pitcher,  Russell  Ford 
of  the  Yankees.  The  cast  of  characters  hav- 


41  Take  Him  Out "  23 

ing  been  named,  the  story  may  now  enter  the 
block. 

Spectators  who  recall  the  game  will  remember 
that  the  two  clubs  had  been  battling  through  the 
early  innings  with  neither  team  able  to  gain  an 
advantage,  and  the  Giants  came  to  bat  for  the 
eighth  inning  with  the  score  a  tie.  Ford  was 
pitching  perfectly  with  all  the  art  of  a  master 
craftsman.  Each  team  had  made  one  run.  I 
was  the  first  man  up  and  started  the  eighth  inning 
with  a  single  because  Ford  slackened  up  a  little 
against  me,  thinking  that  I  was  not  dangerous. 
Devore  beat  out  an  infield  hit,  and  Doyle  bunted 
and  was  safe,  filling  the  bases.  Then  Ford  went 
to  work.  He  struck  out  Snodgrass,  and  Hemphill 
caught  Murray's  fly  far  too  near  the  infield  to 
permit  me  to  try  to  score.  It  looked  as  if  Ford 
were  going  to  get  out  of  the  hole  when  "Al" 
Bridwell,  the  former  Giant  shortstop,  came  to  the 
bat.  Ford  threw  him  two  bad  balls,  and  then 
McGraw  ran  out  from  the  bench,  and,  with  an 
autocratic  finger,  held  up  the  game  while  he  whis- 
pered into  BridwelTs  ear. 

"Al"  nodded  knowingly,  and  the  whole  thing 
was  a  pantomime,  a  wordless  play,  that  made 


24  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

Sumurun  look  like  a  bush-league  production. 
Bridwell  stepped  back  into  the  batter's  box,  and 
McGraw  returned  to  the  bench  On  the  next 
pitch,  "AT*  was  hit  in  the  leg  and  went  to  first 
base,  forcing  the  run  that  broke  the  tie  across  the 
plate.  That  run  also  broke  Ford's  heart.  And 
here  is  what  McGraw  whispered  into  the  attentive 
ear  of  Bridwell: 

"How  many  quail  did  you  say  you  shot  when 
you  were  hunting  last  fall,  Al?" 

John  McGraw,  the  psychologist,  baseball  gen- 
oral  and  manager,  had  heard  opportunity 
knock.  With  his  fingers  on  the  pulse  of  the  game, 
he  had  felt  the  tenseness  of  the  situation,  and 
realized,  all  in  the  flash  of  an  eye,  that  Ford  was 
wabbling  and  that  anything  would  push  him  over. 
He  stopped  the  game  and  whispered  into  Brid well's 
ear  while  Ford  was  feeling  more  and  more  the 
intensity  of  the  crisis.  He  had  an  opportunity 
to  observe  the  three  men  on  the  bases.  He 
wondered  what  McGraw  was  whispering,what  trick 
was  to  be  expected.  Was  he  telling  the  batter  to 
get  hit?  Yes,  he  must  be.  Then  he  did  just 
that — hit  the  batter,  and  lost  the  game. 

Why  can  certain  pitchers  always  beat  certain 


41  Take  Him  Out "  25 

clubs  and  why  do  they  look  like  bush  leaguers 
against  others?  To  be  concrete,  why  can  Brook- 
lyn fight  Chicago  so  hard  and  look  foolish  playing 
against  the  Giants?  Why  can  the  Yankees  take 
game  after  game  from  Detroit  and  be  easy  pick- 
ing for  the  Cleveland  club  in  most  of  their  games? 
Why  does  Boston  beat  Marquard  when  he  can 
make  the  hard  Philadelphia  hitters  look  like  blind 
men  with  bats  in  their  hands?  Why  could  I  beat 
Cincinnati  gamezaf ter  game  for  two  years  when  the 
club  was  filled  with  hard  hitters?  It  is  the  psy- 
chology of  baseball,  the  mental  attitudes  of  the 
players,  some  intangible  thing  that  works  on  the 
mind.  Managers  are  learning  to  use  this  subtle, 
indescribable  element  which  is  such  a  factor. 

The  great  question  which  confronts  every  Big 
League  manager  is  how  to  break  a  valuable  young 
pitcher  into  the  game.  "Rube"  Marquard  came 
to  the  Giants  in  the  fall  of  1908  out  of  the  American 
Association  heralded  as  a  world-beater,  with  a 
reputation  that  shimmered  and  shone.  The 
newspapers  were  crowded  with  stories  of  the  man 
for  whom  McGraw  had  paid  $11,000,  who  had 
been  standing  them  on  their  heads  in  the  West, 
who  had  curves  that  couldn't  be  touched,  and 


26  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

was  a  bargain  at  the  unheard-of  price  paid  for 
him. 

"Rube"  Marquard  came  to  the  Giants  in  a 
burst  of  glory  and  publicity  when  the  club  was 
fighting  for  the  pennant.  McGraw  was  up 
against  it  for  pitchers  at  that  time,  and  one  win, 
turned  in  by  a  young  pitcher,  might  have  re- 
sulted in  the  Giants  winning  the  pennant  as  the 
season  ended. 

"Don't  you  think  Marquard  would  win? 
Can't  you  put  him  in?"  Mr.  Brush,  the  owner  of 
the  club,  asked  McGraw  one  day  when  he  was 
discussing  the  pitching  situation  with  the  manager. 

"I  don't  know,"  answered  McGraw.  "If 
he  wins  his  first  time  out  in  the  Big  Leagues,  he 
will  be  a  world-beater,  and,  if  he  loses,  it  may  cost 
us  a  good  pitcher. "  But  Mr.  Brush  was  insistent. 
Here  a  big  price  had  been  paid  for  a  pitcher  with 
a  record,  and  pitchers  were  what  the  club  needed. 
The  newspapers  declared  that  the  fans  should 
get  a  look  at  this  "$11,000  beauty"  hi  action. 
A  double  header  was  scheduled  to  be  played  with 
the  Cincinnati  club  in  the  month  of  September, 
in  1908,  and  the  pitching  staff  was  gone.  Mc- 
Graw glanced  over  his  collection  of  crippled  and 


"Take  Him  Out"  27 

worked-out  twirlers.  Then  he  saw  "Rube" 
Marquard,  big  and  fresh. 

"Go  in  and  pitch,"  he  ordered  after  Marquard 
had  warmed  up. 

McGraw  always  does  things  that  way,  makes 
up  his  mind  about  the  most  important  matters 
in  a  minute  and  then  stands  by  his  judgment. 
Marquard  went  into  the  box,  but  he  did  n't  pitch 
much.  He  has  told  me  about  it  since. 

"When  I  saw  that  crowd,  Matty,"  he  said, 
"I  did  n't  know  where  I  was.  It  looked  so  big  to 
me,  and  they  were  all  wondering  what  I  was  going 
to  do,  and  all  thinking  that  McGraw  had  paid 
$11,000  for  me,  and  now  they  were  to  find  out 
whether  he  had  gotten  stuck,  whether  he  had 
picked  up  a  gold  brick  with  the  plating  on  it  very 
thin.  I  was  wondering,  myself,  whether  I  would 
make  good." 

What  Marquard  did  that  day  is  a  matter  of 
record,  public  property,  like  marriage  and  death 
notices.  Kane,  the  little  rightfielder  on  the  Cin- 
cinnati club,  was  the  first  man  up,  and,  although 
he  was  one  of  the  smallest  targets  in  the  league, 
Marquard  hit  him.  He  promptly  stole  sec- 
ond, which  worried  "Rube"  some  more.  Up 


28  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

came  Lobert,  the  man  who  broke  Marquard's 
heart. 

"Now  we'll  see,"  said  Lobert  to  "Rube," 
as  he  advanced  to  the  plate,  "whether  you  're 
a  busher. "  Then  Lobert,  the  tantalizing  Teuton 
with  the  bow-legs,  whacked  out  a  triple  to  the  far 
outfield  and  stopped  at  third  with  a  mocking 
smile  on  his  face  which  would  have  gotten  the  late 
Job's  goat. 

"You're  identified,"  said  "Hans";  "you're 
a  busher." 

Some  fan  shouted  the  fatal  "Take  him  out." 
Marquard  was  gone.  Bescher  followed  with 
another  triple,  and,  after  that,  the  official  scorer 
got  writer's  cramp  trying  to  keep  track  of  the  hits 
and  runs.  The  number  of  hits,  I  don't  think,  ever 
was  computed  with  any  great  amount  of  exacti- 
tude. Marquard  was  taken  out  of  the  box  in  the 
fifth  inning,  and  he  was  two  years  recovering 
from  the  shock  of  that  beating.  McGraw  had 
put  him  into  the  game  against  his  better  judgment, 
and  he  paid  for  it  dearly. 

Marquard  had  to  be  nursed  along  on  the  bench 
finishing  games,  starting  only  against  easy  clubs, 
and  learning  the  ropes  of  the  Big  Leagues  before 


Oeyen,  Cleveland,  O 


Ty  Cobb  and  Hans  Wagner 

.  "An  American  and  National  League  star  of  the  first  magnitude.  Fans  of  th« 
nval  leagues  never  tire  of  discussing  the  relative  merits  of  these  two  great  players. 
Both  are  always  willing  to  take  a  chance,  and  seem  to  do  their  be*t  work  whea 
Dressed  hardest." 


"Take  Him  Out"  29 

be  was  able  to  be  a  winning  pitcher.  McGraw 
was  a  long  time  realizing  on  his  investment.  All 
Marquard  needed  was  a  victory,  a  decisive  win, 
over  a  strong  club. 

The  Giants  played  a  disastrous  series  with  the 
Philadelphia  club  early  in  July,  1911,  and  lost 
four  games  straight.  All  the  pitchers  were  shot 
to  pieces,  and  the  Quakers  seemed  to  be  unbeatable. 
McGraw  was  at  a  loss  for  a  man  to  use  in  the  fifth 
game.  The  weather  was  steaming  hot,  and  the 
players  were  dragged  out,  while  the  pitching  staff 
had  lost  all  its  starch.  As  McGraw's  eye  scanned 
his  bedraggled  talent,  Marquard,  reading  his 
thoughts,  walked  up  to  him. 

"Give  me  a  chance, "  he  asked. 

"Go  in,"  answered  McGraw,  again  making  up 
his  mind  on  the  spur  of  the  moment.  Marquard 
went  into  the  game  and  made  the  Philadelphia 
batters,  whose  averages  had  been  growing  cor- 
pulent on  the  pitching  of  the  rest  of  the  staff,  look 
foolish.  There  on  that  sweltering  July  afternoon, 
when  everything  steamed  in  the  blistering  heat, 
a  pitcher  was  being  born  again.  Marquard  had 
found  himself,  and,  for  the  rest  of  the  season,  he 
was  strongest  against  the  Philadelphia  team, 


30  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

for  it  had  been  that  club  which  restored  his 
confidence. 

There  is  a  sequel  to  that  old  Lobert  incident,  too. 
In  one  of  the  last  series  in  Philadelphia,  toward 
the  end  of  the  season,  Marquard  and  Lobert 
faced  each  other  again.  Said  Marquard: 

"Remember  the  time,  you  bow-legged  Dutch- 
man, when  you  asked  me  whether  I  was  a  busher? 
Here  is  where  I  pay  you  back.  This  is  the  place 
where  you  get  a  bad  showing  up." 

And  he  fanned  Lobert — whiff !  whiff !  whiff ! — like 
that.  He  became  the  greatest  lefthander  in  the 
country,  and  would  have  been  sooner,  except  for 
the  enormous  price  paid  for  him  and  the  wide- 
spread publicity  he  received,  which  caused  him  to 
be  over-anxious  to  make  good.  It 's  the  psychol- 
ogy of  the  game. 

"You  can't  hit  what  you  don't  see, "  says  "Joe" 
Tinker  of  Marquard's  pitching.  ' '  When  he  throws 
his  fast  one,  the  only  way  you  know  it 's  past  you 
is  because  you  hear  the  ball  hit  the  catcher's 
glove." 

Fred  Clarke,  of  the  Pittsburg  club,  was  up 
against  the  same  proposition  when  he  purchased 
"Marty"  O'Toole  for  $22,500  in  1911.  The 


41  Take  Him  Out"  31 

newspapers  of  the  country  were  filled  with  figures 
and  pictures  of  the  real  estate  and  automobiles 
that  could  be  bought  with  the  same  amount  of 
money,  lined  up  alongside  of  pictures  of  O'Toole,  as 
when  the  comparative  strengths  of  the  navies  of 
the  world  are  shown  by  placing  different  sizes  of 
battleships  in  a  row,  or  when  the  length  of  the 
Lusitania  is  emphasized  by  printing  a  picture  of  it 
balancing  gracefully  on  its  stern  alongside  the 
Singer  Building. 

Clarke  realized  that  he  had  all  this  publicity 
with  which  to  contend,  and  that  it  would  do  his 
expensive  new  piece  of  pitching  bric-a-brac  no 
good.  O'Toole,  jerked  out  of  a  minor  league 
where  he  had  been  pitching  quietly,  along  with  his 
name  in  ten  or  a  dozen  papers,  was  suddenly  a 
national  figure,  measuring  up  in  newspaper  space 
with  Roosevelt  and  Taft  and  J.  Johnson. 

When  O'Toole  joined  the  Pirates  near  the  end 
of  the  season,  Clarke  knew  down  in  his  heart  the 
club  had  no  chance  of  winning  the  pennant  with 
Wagner  hurt,  although  he  still  publicly  declared 
he  was  in  the  race.  He  did  not  risk  jumping 
O'Toole  right  into  the  game  as  soon  as  he  reported 
and  taking  the  chance  of  breaking  his  heart. 


32  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

Opposing  players,  if  they  are  up  in  the  pennant 
hunt,  are  hard  on  a  pitcher  of  this  sort  and  would 
lose  no  opportunity  to  mention  the  price  paid  for 
him  and  connect  it  pointedly  with  his  showing, 
if  that  showing  was  a  little  wobbly.  Charity 
begins  at  home,  and  stays  there,  in  the  Big  Leagues. 
At  least,  I  never  saw  any  of  it  on  the  ball  fields, 
especially  if  the  club  is  in  the  race,  and  the  only 
thing  that  stands  between  it  and  a  victory  is  the 
ruining  of  a  $22,500  pitcher  of  a  rival. 

Clarke  nursed  O'Toole  along  on  the  bench  for  a 
couple  of  weeks  until  he  got  to  be  thoroughly 
acclimated,  and  then  he  started  him  in  a  game 
against  Boston,  the  weakest  club  in  the  league, 
after  he  had  sent  for  Kelly,  O'Toole's  regular 
catcher,  to  inspire  more  confidence.  O'Toole 
had  an  easy  time  of  it  at  his  Big  League  d6but,  for 
the  Boston  players  did  not  pick  on  him  any  to 
speak  of,  as  they  were  not  a  very  hard  bunch  of 
pickers.  The  Pittsburg  team  gave  him  a  nice 
comfortable,  cosy  lead,  and  he  was  pitching  along 
ahead  of  the  game  all  the  way.  In  the  fifth  or 
sixth  inning  Clarke  slipped  Gibson,  the  regular 
Pittsburg  catcher,  behind  the  bat,  and  O'Toole 
had  won  his  first  game  in  the  Big  League  before  he 


"Take  Him  Out"  33 

knew  it.  He  then  reasoned  I  have  won  here. 
I  belong  here.  I  can  get  along  here.  It  isn't 
much  different  from  the  crowd  I  came  from,  except 
for  the  name,  and  that 's  nothing  to  get  timid 
about  if  I  can  clean  up  as  easily  as  I  did  to-day. 

Fred  Clarke,  also  a  psychologist  and  baseball 
manager,  had  worked  a  valuable  pitcher  into  the 
League,  and  he  had  won  his  first  game.  If  he 
had  started  him  against  some  club  like  the  Giants, 
for  instance,  where  he  would  have  had  to  face  a 
big  crowd  and  the  conversation  and  spirit  of 
players  who  were  after  a  pennant  and  hot  after  it, 
he  might  have  lost  and  his  heart  would  have  been 
broken.  Successfully  breaking  into  the  game  an 
expensive  pitcher,  who  has  cost  a  club  a  large 
price,  is  one  of  the  hardest  problems  which  con- 
fronts a  manager.  Now  O'Toole  is  all  right  if  he 
has  the  pitching  goods.  He  has  taken  his  initial 
plunge,  and  all  he  has  to  do  is  to  make  good  next 
year.  The  psychology  element  is  eliminated  from 
now  on. 

I  have  been  told  that  Clarke  was  the  most 
relieved  man  in  seven  counties  when  O'Toole  came 
through  with  that  victory  in  Boston. 

"I  had  in  mind  all  the  time,"  said  Fred,  "what 


34  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

happened  to  McGraw  when  he  was  trying  to 
introduce  Marquard  into  the  smart  set,  and  I  was 
afraid  the  same  thing  would  happen  to  me.  I  had 
a  lot  of  confidence  in  the  nerve  of  that  young 
fellow  though,  because  he  stood  up  well  under  fire 
the  first  day  he  got  into  Pittsburg.  One  of  those 
lady  reporters  was  down  to  the  club  offices  to  meet 
him  the  morning  he  got  into  town,  and  they  always 
kind  of  have  me,  an  old  campaigner,  stepping 
away  from  the  plate.  She  pulled  her  pad  and 
pencil  on  Marty  first  thing,  before  he  had  had  a 
chance  to  knock  the  dirt  out  of  his  cleats,  and  said : 

"'Now  tell  me  about  yourself.' 

"He  stepped  right  into  that  one,  instead  of 
backing  away. 

'"What  do  you  want  me  to  tell?'  he  asks  her. 

"Then  I  knew  he  was  all  right.  He  was  there 
with  the  'come-back.'" 

But  the  ideal  way  to  break  a  star  into  the  Big 
League  is  that  which  marked  the  entrance  of 
Grover  Cleveland  Alexander,  of  the  Philadelphia 
club.  The  Cincinnati  club  had  had  its  eye  on 
Alexander  for  some  time,  but  "  Tacks  "  Ashenbach, 
the  scout,  now  dead,  had  advised  against  him, 
declaring  that  he  would  be  no  good  against ' '  regular 


"  Take  Him  Out "  35 

batters."  Philadelphia  got  him  at  the  waiver 
price  and  he  was  among  the  lot  in  the  newspapers 
marked  ' '  Those  who  also  joined. ' '  He  started  out 
in  191 1  and  won  two  or  three  games  before  anyone 
paid  any  attention  to  him.  Then  he  kept  on 
winning  until  one  manager  was  saying  to  another: 

"That  guy,  Alexander,  is  a  hard  one  to  beat." 

He  had  won  ten  or  a  dozen  games  before  it  was 
fully  realized  that  he  was  a  star.  Then  he  was  so 
accustomed  to  the  Big  League  he  acted  as  if  he 
had  been  living  in  it  all  his  life,  and  there  was  no 
getting  on  his  nerves.  When  he  started,  he  had 
everything  to  gain  and  nothing  to  lose.  If  he 
did  n't  last,  the  newspapers  would  n't  laugh  at  him, 
and  the  people  would  n't  say: 

" $n, ooo,  or  $22,500,  for  a  lemon."  That's 
the  dread  of  all  ball  players. 

Such  is  the  psychology  of  introducing  promising 
pitchers  into  the  Big  Leagues.  The  Alexander 
route  is  the  ideal  one,  but  it 's  hard  to  get  stars 
now  without  paying  enormous  prices  for  them. 
Philadelphia  was  lucky. 

There  is  another  element  which  enters  into  all 
forms  of  athletics.  Tennis  players  call  it  nervous- 
ness, and  ball  players,  in  the  frankness  of  the  game, 


36  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

call  it  a  "yellow  streak."  It  is  the  inability  to 
stand  the  gaff,  the  weakening  in  the  pinches  It 
is  something  ingrained  in  a  man  that  can't  be 
cured.  It  is  the  desire  to  quit  when  the  situation 
is  serious.  It  is  different  from  stage  fright, 
because  a  man  may  get  over  that,  but  a  "yellow 
streak"  is  always  with  him.  When  a  new  player 
breaks  into  the  League,  he  is  put  to  the  most 
severe  test  by  the  other  men  to  see  if  he  is  "yellow." 
If  he  is  found  wanting,  he  is  hopeless  in  the  Big 
League,  for  the  news  will  spread,  and  he  will 
receive  no  quarter.  It  is  the  cardinal  sin  in  a  ball 
player. 

For  some  time  after  "Hans"  Wagner's  poor 
showing  in  the  world's  series  of  1903,  when  the 
Pittsburg  club  was  defeated  for  the  World's 
Championship  by  the  Boston  American  League 
dub,  it  was  reported  that  he  was  "yellow. "  This 
grieved  the  Dutchman  deeply,  for  I  don't  know 
a  ball  player  in  either  league  who  would  assay  less 
quit  to  the  ton  than  Wagner.  He  is  always  there 
and  always  fighting.  Wagner  felt  the  inference 
which  his  team  mates  drew  very  keenly.  This 
was  the  real  tragedy  in  Wagner's  career.  Not- 
withstanding his  stolid  appearance,  he  is  a  sensi- 


'•  Take  Him  Out"  37 

tive  player,  and  this  hurt  him  more  than  anything 
else  in  his  life  ever  has. 

When  the  Pittsburg  club  played  Detroit  in  1909 
for  the  championship  of  the  world,  many,  even  of 
Wagner's  admirers,  said,  "The  Dutchman  will 
quit. "  It  was  in  this  series  he  vindicated  himself. 
His  batting  scored  the  majority  of  the  Pittsburg 
runs,  and  his  fielding  was  little  short  of  wonderful. 
He  was  demonstrating  his  gameness.  Many  men 
would  have  quit  under  the  reflection.  They  would 
have  been  unable  to  withstand  the  criticism,  but 
not  Wagner. 

Many  persons  implied  that  John  Murray,  the 
rightfielder  on  the  Giants,  was  "yellow"  at  the 
conclusion  of  the  1911  world's  series  because,  after 
batting  almost  three  hundred  in  the  season,  he  did 
not  get  a  hit  in  the  six  games.  But  there  is  n't 
a  man  on  the  team  gamer.  He  has  n't  any  nerves. 
He  's  one  of  the  sort  of  ball  players  who  says: 

"Well,  now  I  've  got  my  chew  of  tobacco  in 
my  mouth.  Let  her  go. " 

There  is  an  interesting  bit  of  psychology  con- 
nected with  Wagner  and  the  spit-ball.  It  comes 
as  near  being  Wagner's  "groove"  as  any  curve 
that  has  found  its  way  into  the  Big  Leagues.  This 


38  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

is  explained  by  the  fact  that  the  first  time  Wagner 
ever  faced  "Bugs"  Raymond  he  did  n't  get  a  hit 
with  Arthur  using  the  spitter.  Consequently  the 
report  went  around  the  circuit  that  Wagner 
couldn't  hit  the  spit-ball.  He  disproved  this 
theory  against  two  or  three  spit-ball  pitchers,  but 
as  long  as  Raymond  remained  in  the  League  he  had 
it  on  the  hard-hitting  Dutchman. 

"Here  comes  a  'spitter,'  Hans.  Look  out  for 
it,"  Raymond  would  warn  Wagner,  with  a  wide 
grin,  and  then  he  would  pop  up  a  wet  one. 

"Guess  I  '11  repeat  on  that  dose,  Hans;  you 
didn't  like  that  one." 

And  Wagner  would  get  so  worked  up  that  he 
frequently  struck  out  against  "Bugs"  when  the 
rest  of  his  club  was  hitting  the  eccentric  pitcher 
hard.  It  was  because  he  achieved  the  idea  on  the 
first  day  he  couldn't  hit  the  spit-ball,  and  he 
was  n't  able  to  rid  his  mind  of  the  impression. 
Many  fans  often  wondered  why  Raymond  had  it 
on  Wagner,  the  man  whose  only  "groove"  is  a 
base  on  balls.  "Bugs"  had  the  edge  after  that 
first  day  when  Wagner  lost  confidence  in  his  ability 
to  hit  the  spit-ball  as  served  by  Raymond. 

In  direct  contrast  to  this  loss  of  confidence  on 


"Take  Him  Out"  39 

Wagner's  part  was  the  incident  attendant  upon 
Arthur  Devlin's  d6but  into  the  Big  League.  He 
had  joined  the  club  a  youngster,  in  the  season  of 
1904,  and  McGraw  had  not  counted  upon  him  to 
play  third  base,  having  planned  to  plant  Bresnahan 
at  that  corner.  But  Bresnahan  developed  sciatic 
rheumatism  early  in  the  season,  and  Devlin  was 
put  on  the  bag  in  the  emergency  with  a  great  deal 
of  misgiving. 

The  first  day  he  was  in  the  game  he  came  up  to 
the  bat  with  the  bases  full.  The  Giants  were 
playing  Brooklyn  at  the  Polo  Grounds,  and  two 
men  had  already  struck  out,  with  the  team  two 
runs  behind.  Devlin  came  out  from  the  bench. 

"Who  is  this  youthful-looking  party?"  one  fan 
asked  another,  as  they  scanned  their  score  cards. 

"Devlin,some  busher,  taking  Bresnahan's  place," 
another  answered. 

"Well,  it 's  all  off  now, "  was  the  general  verdict. 

The  crowd  settled  back,  and  one  could  feel  the 
lassitude  in  the  atmosphere.  But  Devlin  had  his 
first  chance  to  make  good  in  a  pinch.  There  was 
no  weariness  in  his  manner.  Poole,  the  Brooklyn 
pitcher,  showing  less  respect  than  he  should  have 
for  the  newcomer  in  baseball  society,  spilled  one 


40  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

over  too  near  the  middle,  and  Arthur  drove  out  a 
home  run,  winning  the  game.  Those  who  had 
refused  to  place  any  confidence  in  him  only  a 
moment  before,  were  on  their  feet  cheering  wildly 
now.  And  Devlin  played  third  base  for  almost 
eight  years  after  that,  and  none  thought  of  Bresna- 
han  and  his  rheumatism  until  he  began  catching 
again.  Devlin,  after  that  home  run,  was  oozing 
confidence  from  every  pore  and  burned  up  the 
League  with  his  batting  for  three  years.  He  got 
the  old  confidence  from  his  start.  The  fans  had 
expected  nothing  from  him,  and  he  had  delivered. 
He  had  gained  everything.  He  had  made  the 
most  dramatic  play  in  baseball  on  his  first  day, 
a  home  run  with  the  bases  full. 

When  Fred  Snodgrass  first  started  playing  as  a 
regular  with  the  Giants  about  the  middle  of  the 
season  of  1910,  he  hit  any  ball  pitched  him  hard 
and  had  all  the  fans  marvelling  at  his  stick  work. 
He  believed  that  he  could  hit  anything  and,  as 
long  as  he  retained  that  belief,  he  could. 

But  the  Chalmers  Automobile  Company  had 
offered  a  prize  of  one  nice,  mild-mannered  motor 
car  to  the  batter  in  either  league  who  finished  the 
season  with  the  biggest  average. 


"  Take  Him  Out "  41 

Snodgrass  was  batting  over  four  hundred  at  one 
time  and  was  ahead  of  them  all  when  suddenly 
the  New  York  evening  papers  began  to  publish 
the  daily  averages  of  the  leaders  for  the  automo- 
bile, boosting  Snodgrass.  It  suddenly  struck  Fred 
that  he  was  a  great  batter  and  that  to  keep  his 
place  in  that  daily  standing  he  would  have  to 
make  a  hit  every  time  he  went  to  the  plate.  These 
printed  figures  worried  him.  His  batting  fell  off 
miserably  until,  in  the  post  season  series  with  the 
Yankees,  he  gave  one  of  the  worst  exhibitions  of 
any  man  on  the  team.  The  newspapers  did  it. 

"  They  got  me  worrying  about  myself,"  he  told 
me  once.  "  I  began  to  think  how  close  I  was  to 
the  car  and  had  a  moving  picture  of  myself  driv- 
ing it.  That  settled  it." 

Many  promising  young  players  are  broken  in 
their  first  game  in  the  Big  League  by  the  ragging 
which  they  are  forced  to  undergo  at  the  hands  of 
veteran  catchers.  John  Kling  is  a  very  bad  man 
with  youngsters,  and  sometimes  he  can  get  on  the 
nerves  of  older  players  in  close  games  when  the 
nerves  are  strung  tight.  The  purpose  of  a  catcher 
in  talking  to  a  man  in  this  way  is  to  distract  his 
attention  from  batting,  and  once  this  is  accom- 


42  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

plished  he  is  gone.  A  favorite  trick  of  a  catcher 
is  to  say  to  a  new  batter: 

"Look  out  for  this  fellow.  He  's  got  a  mean 
'bean'  ball,  and  he  hasn't  any  influence  over  it. 
There  's  a  poor  '  boob '  in  the  hospital  now  that 
stopped  one  with  his  head." 

Then  the  catcher  signs  for  the  pitcher  to  throw 
the  next  one  at  the  young  batter's  head.  If  he 
pulls  away,  an  unpardonable  sin  in  baseball,  the 
dose  is  repeated. 

"Yer  almost  had  your  foot  in  the  water-pail 
over  by  the  bench  that  time,"  says  the  catcher. 

Bing!  Up  comes  another  "beaner. "  Then, 
after  the  catcher  has  sized  the  new  man  up,  he 
makes  his  report. 

"He  won't  do.     He  's  yellow." 

And  the  players  keep  mercilessly  after  this 
shortcoming,  this  ingrained  fault  which,  unlike 
a  mechanical  error,  cannot  be  corrected  until  the 
new  player  is  driven  out  of  the  League.  Perhaps 
the  catcher  says : 

"He  's  game,  that  guy.     No  scare  to  him." 

After  that  he  is  let  alone.  It 's  the  psychology 
of  batting. 

Once,  when  I  first  broke  into  the  League,  Jack 


"  Take  Him  Out "  43 

Chesbro,  then  with  Pittsburg,  threw  a  fast  one  up, 
and  it  went  behind  my  head,  although  I  tried  to 
dodge  back.  He  had  lots  of  speed  in  those  days, 
too.  It  set  me  wondering  what  would  have 
happened  if  the  ball  had  hit  me.  The  more  I 
thought,  the  more  it  struck  me  that  it  would  have 
greatly  altered  my  face  had  it  gotten  into  the 
course  of  the  ball.  Ever  afterwards,  he  had  it  on 
me,  and,  for  months,  a  fast  one  at  the  head  had 
me  backing  away  from  the  plate. 

In  contrast  to  this  experience  of  mine  was  the 
curing  of  "Josh"  Devore,  the  left-fielder  of  the 
Giants,  of  being  bat  shy  against  left-handers. 
Devore  has  always  been  very  weak  at  the  bat  with  a 
southpaw  in  the  box,  dragging  his  right  foot  away 
from  the  plate.  This  was  particularly  the  case 
against  "Slim"  Sallee,  the  tenuous  southpaw  of 
the  St.  Louis  Nationals.  Finally  McGraw,  exas- 
perated after  "Josh"  had  struck  out  twice  in  one 
day,  said: 

"That  fellow  has  n't  got  speed  enough  to  bend 
a  pane  of  glass  at  the  home  plate  throwing  from 
the  box,  and  you  're  pullin'  away  as  if  he  was 
shooting  them  out  of  a  gun.  It 's  a  crime  to  let 
him  beat  you.  Go  up  there  the  next  time  and 


44  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

get  hit,  and  see  if  he  can  hurt  you.  If  you  don't 
get  hit,  you  're  fined  $10." 

Devore,  who  is  as  fond  of  $10  as  the  next  one, 
went  to  the  bat  and  took  one  of  Sallee's  slants  in  a 
place  where  it  would  do  the  least  damage.  He 
trotted  to  first  base  smiling. 

"What  'd  I  tell  you?"  asked  McGraw,  coaching. 
"Could  he  hurt  you?" 

"Say,"  replied  "Josh,"  "I'd  hire  out  to  let 
them  pitch  baseballs  at  me  if  none  could  throw 
harder  than  that  guy. " 

Devore  was  cured  of  being  bat  shy  when  Sallee 
was  pitching,  right  then  and  there,  and  he  has 
improved  greatly  against  all  left-handers  ever 
since,  so  much  so  that  McGraw  leaves  him  in  the 
game  now  when  a  southpaw  pitches,  instead  of 
placing  Beals  Becker  in  left  field  as  he  used  to. 
All  Devore  needed  was  the  confidence  to  stand  up 
to  the  plate  against  them,  to  rid  his  mind  of  the 
idea  that,  if  once  he  got  hit,  he  would  leave  the 
field  feet  first.  That  slam  in  the  slats  which 
Sallee  handed  him  supplied  the  confidence. 

When  Devore  was  going  to  Philadelphia  for 
the  second  game  of  the  world's  series  in  the  fall  of 
1911,  the  first  one  in  the  other  town,  he  was  intro- 


"Take  Him  Out"  45 

duced  to  "Ty"  Cobb,  the  Detroit  out-fielder,  by 
some  newspaper  man  on  the  train,  and,  as  it  was 
the  first  time  Devore  had  ever  met  Cobb,  he  sat 
down  with  him  and  they  talked  all  the  way  over. 

"Gee,"  said  "Josh"  to  me,  as  we  were  getting 
off  the  train,  "that  fellow  Cobb  knows  a  lot  about 
batting.  He  told  me  some  things  about  the  Ameri- 
can League  pitchers  just  now,  and  he  did  n't  know 
he  was  doing  it.  I  never  let  on.  But  I  just 
hope  that  fellow  Plank  works  to-day,  if  they  think 
that  I  am  weak  against  left-handers.  Say,  Matty, 
I  could  write  a  book  about  that  guy  and  his 
'  grooves'  now,  after  buzzing  Cobb,  and  the  funny 
thing  is  he  did  n't  know  he  was  telling  me. " 

Plank  pitched  that  day  and  fanned  Devore 
four  times  out  of  a  possible  four.  "Josh"  did  n't 
even  get  a  foul  off  him. 

"Thought  you  knew  all  about  that  fellow,"  I 
said  to  Devore  after  the  game. 

"I  Ve  learned  since  that  Cobb  and  he  are  pretty 
thick,"  replied  "Josh,"  "and  I  guess  'Ty'  was 
giving  me  a  bad  steer. " 

It  was  evident  that  Cobb  had  been  filling 
"Josh"  up  with  misinformation  that  was  working 
around  in  Devore's  mind  when  he  went  to  the 


46  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

plate  to  face  Plank,  and,  instead  of  being  open 
to  impressions,  these  wrong  opinions  had  already 
been  planted  and  he  was  constantly  trying  to  con- 
firm them.  Plank  was  crossing  him  all  the  time, 
and,  being  naturally  weak  against  left-handers, 
this  additional  handicap  made  Devore  look  foolish. 

In  the  well-worn  words  of  Mr.  Dooley,  it  has 
been  my  experience  "to  trust  your  friends,  but 
cut  the  cards. "  By  that,  I  mean  one  ball  player 
will  often  come  to  another  with  a  tip  that  he  really 
thinks  worth  while,  but  that  avails  nothing  in  the 
end.  A  man  has  to  be  a  pretty  smart  ball  player 
to  dispense  accurate  information  about  others,  be- 
cause the  Big  Leaguers  know  their  own  "grooves  " 
and  are  naturally  trying  to  cover  them  up.  Then 
a  batter  may  be  weak  against  one  pitcher  on  a 
certain  kind  of  a  ball,  and  may  whale  the  same  sort 
of  delivery,  with  a  different  twist  to  it,  out  of  the 
lot  against  another. 

That  was  the  experience  I  had  with  "Ed" 
Delehanty,  the  famous  slugger  of  the  old  Philadel- 
phia National  League  team,  who  is  now  dead. 
During  my  first  year  in  the  League  several  well- 
meaning  advisers  came  to  me  and  said : 

"Don't  give  'Del'  any  high  fast  ones  because, 


"Take  Him  Out"  47 

if  you  do,  you  will  just  wear  your  fielders  out  worse 
than  a  George  M.  Cohan  show  does  the  chorus. 
They  will  think  they  are  in  a  Marathon  race 
instead  of  a  ball  game. " 

Being  young,  I  took  this  advice,  and  the  first 
time  I  pitched  against  Delehanty,  I  fed  him  curved 
balls.  He  hit  these  so  far  the  first  two  times  he 
came  to  bat  that  one  of  the  balls  was  never  found, 
and  everybody  felt  like  shaking  hands  with  Van 
Haltren,  the  old  Giant  outfielder,  when  he  returned 
with  the  other,  as  if  he  had  been  away  on  a  vaca- 
tion some  place.  In  fact,  I  had  been  warned 
against  giving  any  of  this  Philadelphia  team  of 
sluggers  high  fast  ones,  and  I  had  been  delivering 
a  diet  of  curves  to  all  of  them  which  they  were 
sending  to  the  limits  of  the  park  and  further,  with 
great  regularity.  At  last,  when  Delehanty  came 
to  the  bat  for  the  third  time  in  the  game,  Van 
Haltren  walked  into  the  box  from  the  outfield  and 
handed  the  ball  to  me,  after  he  had  just  gone  to 
the  fence  to  get  it.  Elmer  Flick  had  hit  it  there. 

"Matty,"  he  pleaded,  "for  the  love  of  M&e, 
slip  this  fellow  a  base  on  balls  and  let  me  get  my 
wind." 

Instead  I  decided  to  switch  my  style,  and    I  fed 


48  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

Delehanty  high  fast  ones,  the  dangerous  dose,  and 
he  struck  out  then  and  later.  He  was  n't  expect- 
ing them  and  was  so  surprised  that  he  could  n't 
hit  the  ball.  Only  two  of  the  six  balls  at  which  he 
struck  were  good  ones.  I  found  out  afterwards 
that  the  tradition  about  not  delivering  any  high 
fast  balls  to  the  Philadelphia  hitters  was  the  out- 
growth of  the  old  buzzer  tipping  service,  estab- 
lished in  1899,  by  which  the  batters  were  informed 
what  to  expect  by  Morgan  Murphy,  located  in  the 
clubhouse  with  a  pair  of  field-glasses  and  his  finger 
on  a  button  which  worked  a  buzzer  under  the 
third-base  coaching  box.  The  coacher  tipped  the 
batter  off  what  was  coming  and  the  signal-stealing 
device  had  worked  perfectly.  The  hitters  had 
all  waited  for  the  high  fast  ones  in  those  days,  as 
they  can  be  hit  easier  if  a  man  knows  that  they 
are  coming,  and  can  also  be  hit  farther. 

But,  after  the  buzzer  had  been  discovered  and 
the  delivery  of  pitchers  could  not  be  accurately 
Jtorecast,  this  ability  to  hit  high  fast  ones  vanished, 
but  not  the  tradition.  The  result  was  that  this 
Philadelphia  club  was  getting  a  steady  diet  of 
curves  and  hitting  them  hard,  not  expecting  any- 
thing else.  When  I  first  pitched  against  Dele- 


"Take  Him  Out"  49 

hanty,  his  reputation  as  a  hitter  gave  him  a  big  edge 
on  me.  Therefore  I  was  willing  to  take  any  kind 
of  advice  calculated  to  help  me,  but  eventually  I 
had  to  find  out  for  myself.  If  I  had  taken  a 
chance  on  mixing  them  up  the  first  time  he  faced 
me,  I  still  doubt  if  he  would  have  made  those  two 
long  hits,  but  it  was  his  reputation  working  in  my 
mind  and  the  idea  that  he  ate  up  high  fast  balls 
that  prevented  me  from  taking  the  risk. 

Each  pitcher  has  to  find  out  for  himself  what  a 
man  is  going  to  hit.  It 's  all  right  to  take  advice 
at  first,  but,  if  this  does  not  prove  to  be  the  proper 
prescription,  it 's  up  to  him  to  experiment  and  not 
continue  to  feed  him  the  sort  of  balls  that  he  is 
hitting. 

Reputations  count  for  a  great  deal  in  the  Big 
Leagues.  Cobb  has  a  record  as  being  a  great 
base  runner,  and  I  believe  that  he  steals  ten  bases 
a  season  on  this  reputation.  The  catcher  knows 
he  is  on  the  bag,  realizes  that  he  is  going  to 
steal,  fears  him,  hurries  his  throw,  and,  in  his 
anxiety,  it  goes  bad.  Cobb  is  safe,  whereas,  if 
he  had  been  an  ordinary  runner  with  no  reputa- 
tion, he  would  probably  have  been  thrown  out. 
Pitchers  who  have  made  names  for  themselves 


50  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

in  the  Big  Leagues,  have  a  much  easier  time 
winning  as  a  consequence. 

"All  he  's  got  to  do  is  to  throw  his  glove  into 
the  box  to  beat  that  club,"  is  an  old  expression 
in  baseball,  which  means  that  the  opposing  batters 
fear  the  pitcher  and  that  his  reputation  will  carry 
him  through  if  he  has  nothing  whatever  on  the  ball. 

Newspapers  work  on  the  mental  attitude  of 
Big  League  players.  This  has  been  most  marked 
in  Cincinnati,  and  I  believe  that  the  local  news- 
papers have  done  as  much  as  anything  to  keep  a 
pennant  away  from  that  town.  When  the  team 
went  south  for  the  spring  practice,  the  newspapers 
printed  glowing  reports  of  the  possibilities  of  the 
club  winning  the  pennant,  but,  when  the  club 
started  to  fall  down  in  the  race,  they  would  knock 
the  men,  and  it  would  take  the  heart  out  of  the 
players.  Almost  enough  good  players  have  been 
let  go  by  the  Cincinnati  team  to  make  a  world's 
championship  club.  There  are  Donlin,  Seymour, 
Steinfeldt,  Lobert  and  many  more.  Ball  players 
inhale  the  accounts  printed  in  the  newspapers,  and 
a  correspondent  with  a  grouch  has  ruined  the 
prospects  of  many  a  good  player  and  club.  The 
New  York  newspapers,  first  by  the  great  amount 


"Take  Him  Out"  51 

of  publicity  given  to  his  old  record,  and  then  by 
criticising  him  for  not  making  a  better  showing, 
had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  Marquard  failing  to 
make  good  the  first  two  years  he  was  in  New  York, 
as  I  have  shown. 

A  smart  manager  in  the  Big  League  is  always 
working  to  keep  his  valuable  stars  in  the  right 
frame  of  mind.  On  the  last  western  trip  the 
Giants  made  in  the  season  of  1911,  when  they  won 
the  pennant  by  taking  eighteen  games  out  of 
twenty-two  games,  McGraw  refused  to  permit 
any  of  the  men  to  play  cards.  He  realized  that 
often  the  stakes  ran  high  and  that  the  losers 
brooded  over  the  money  which  they  lost  and  were 
thinking  of  this  rather  than  the  game  when  on  the 
ball  field.  It  hurt  their  playing,  so  there  were  no 
cards.  He  also  carried  "Charley"  Faust,  the 
Kansas  Jinx  killer,  along  to  keep  the  players 
amused  and  because  it  was  thought  that  he  was 
good  luck.  It  helped  their  mental  attitude. 

The  treatment  of  a  new  player  when  he  first 
arrives  is  different  now  from  what  it  was  in  the 
old  days.  Once  there  was  a  time  when  the  veteran 
looked  upon  the  recruit  with  suspicion  and  the 
feeling  that  he  had  come  to  take  his  job  and  his 


52  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

bread  and  butter  from  him.  If  a  young  pitcher 
was  put  into  the  box,  the  old  catcher  would  do  all 
that  he  could  to  irritate  him,  and  many  times  he 
would  inform  the  batters  of  the  other  side  what  he 
was  going  to  throw. 

"He  's  tryin'  to  horn  my  friend  Bill  out  of  a 
job,"  I  have  heard  catchers  charge  against  a 
youngster. 

This  attitude  drove  many  a  star  ball  player 
back  to  the  minors  because  he  couldn't  make 
good  under  the  adverse  circumstances,  but  nothing 
of  the  sort  exists  now.  Each  veteran  does  all  that 
he  can  to  help  the  youngster,  realizing  that  on  the 
younger  generation  depends  the  success  of  the 
club,  and  that  no  one  makes  any  money  by  being 
on  a  loser.  Travelling  with  a  tail-end  ball 
club  is  the  poorest  pastime  in  the  world.  I  would 
rather  ride  in  the  first  coach  of  a  funeral  procession. 

The  youngster  is  treated  more  courteously 
now  when  he  first  arrives.  In  the  old  days,  the 
veterans  of  the  club  sized  up  the  recruit  and  treated 
him  like  a  stranger  for  days,  which  made  him  feel 
as  if  he  were  among  enemies  instead  of  friends,  and, 
as  a  result,  it  was  much  harder  for  him  to  make 
good.  Now  all  hands  make  him  a  companion 


"Take  Him  Out'*  53 

from  the  start,  unless  he  shows  signs  of  being 
unusually  fresh. 

There  is  a  lot  to  baseball  in  the  Big  Leagues 
besides  playing  the  game.  No  man  can  have  a 
' '  yellow  streak ' '  and  last.  He  must  not  pay  much 
attention  to  his  nerves  or  temperament.  He  must 
hide  every  flaw.  It 's  all  part  of  the  psychology 
of  baseball.  But  the  saddest  words  of  all  to  a 
pitcher  are  three— "  Take  Him  Out. " 


ra 

Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

Many  Pitchers  Are  Effective  in  a  Big  League  Ball  Game 
until  that  Heart-Breaking  Moment  Arrives  Known 
as  the  "  Pinch  "—It  Is  then  that  the  Man  in  the 
Box  is  Put  to  the  Severest  Test  by  the  Coachers 
and  the  Players  on  the  Bench — Victory  or  De- 
feat Hangs  on  his  Work  in  that  Inning — Famous 
"Pinches." 

I N  most  Big  League  ball  games,  there  comes  an 
*  inning  on  which  hangs  victory  or  defeat. 
Certain  intellectual  fans  call  it  the  crisis;  college 
professors,  interested  in  the  sport,  have  named  it 
the  psychological  moment;  Big  League  managers 
mention  it  as  the  "break,"  and  pitchers  speak  of 
the  "pinch." 

This  is  the  time  when  each  team  is  straining 
every  nerve  either  to  win  or  to  prevent  defeat. 
The  players  and  spectators  realize  that  the  out- 
come of  the  inning  is  of  vital  importance.    And 
54 


Pitching  in  a  Pinch  55 

in  most  of  these  pinches,  the  real  burden  falls  on 
the  pitcher.  It  is  at  this  moment  that  he  is 
"putting  all  he  has"  on  the  ball,  and  simulta- 
neously his  opponents  are  doing  everything  they 
can  to  disconcert  him. 

Managers  wait  for  this  break,  and  the  shrewd 
league  leader  can  often  time  it.  Frequently  a 
certain  style  of  play  is  adopted  to  lead  up  to  the 
pinch,  then  suddenly  a  slovenly  mode  of  attack  is 
changed,  and  the  team  comes  on  with  a  rush  in  an 
effort  to  break  up  the  game.  That  is  the  real  test 
of  a  pitcher.  He  must  be  able  to  live  through 
these  squalls. 

Two  evenly  matched  clubs  have  been  playing 
through  six  innings  with  neither  team  gaining  any 
advantage.  Let  us  say  that  they  are  the  Giants 
and  the  Chicago  Cubs.  Suddenly  the  Chicago 
pitcher  begins  to  weaken  in  the  seventh.  Specta- 
tors cannot  perceive  this,  but  McGraw,  the  Giants' 
manager,  has  detected  some  crack.  All  has  been 
quiet  on  the  bench  up  to  this  moment.  Now 
the  men  begin  to  fling  about  sweaters  and  move 
around,  one  going  to  the  water  cooler  to  get  a 
drink,  another  picking  up  a  bat  or  two  and  flinging 
them  in  the  air,  while  four  or  five  prospective 


56  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

hitters  are  lined  up,  swinging  several  sticks  apiece, 
as  if  absolutely  confident  that  each  will  get  his 
turn  at  the  plate. 

The  two  coachers  on  the  side  lines  have  become 
dancing  dervishes,  waving  sweaters  and  arms 
wildly,  and  shouting  various  words  of  discourage- 
ment to  the  pitcher  which  are  calculated  to  make 
his  job  as  soft  as  a  bed  of  concrete.  He  has 
pitched  three  balls  to  the  batter,  and  McGraw  vehe- 
mently protests  to  the  umpire  that  the  twirler 
is  not  keeping  his  foot  on  the  slab.  The  game  is 
delayed  while  this  is  discussed  at  the  pitcher's  box 
and  the  umpire  brushes  off  the  rubber  strip  with 
a  whisk  broom. 

There  is  a  kick  against  these  tactics  from  the 
other  bench,  but  the  damage  has  been  done. 
The  pitcher  passes  the  batter,  forgets  what  he 
ought  to  throw  to  the  next  man,  and  cannot  get 
the  ball  where  he  wants  it.  A  base  hit  follows. 
Then  he  is  gone.  The  following  batter  triples, 
and,  before  another  pitcher  can  be  warmed  up, 
three  or  four  runs  are  across  the  plate,  and  the 
game  is  won.  That  explains  why  so  many  wise 
managers  keep  a  pitcher  warming  up  when  the 
man  in  the  box  is  going  strong. 


Pitching  in  a  Pinch  57 

It  is  in  the  pinch  that  the  pitcher  shows  whether 
or  not  he  is  a  Big  Leaguer.  He  must  have  some- 
thing besides  curves  then.  He  needs  a  head,  and 
he  has  to  use  it.  It  is  the  acid  test.  That  is  the 
reason  so  many  men,  who  shine  in  the  minor 
leagues,  fail  to  make  good  in  the  majors.  They 
cannot  stand  the  fire. 

A  young  pitcher  came  to  the  Giants  a  few  years 
ago.  I  won't  mention  his  name  because  he  has 
been  pitching  good  minor-league  ball  since.  He 
was  a  wonder  with  the  bases  empty,  but  let  a  man 
or  two  get  on  the  sacks,  and  he  would  n't  know 
whether  he  was  in  a  pitcher's  box  or  learning 
aviation  in  the  Wright  school,  and  he  acted  a  lot 
more  like  an  aviator  in  the  crisis.  McGraw 
looked  him  over  twice. 

"He  's  got  a  spine  like  a  charlotte  russe, " 
declared  "Mac,"  after  his  second  peek,  and  he 
passed  him  back  to  the  bushes. 

Several  other  Big  League  managers,  tempted  by 
this  man's  brilliant  record  in  the  minors,  have 
tried  him  out  since,  but  he  has  always  gone  back. 
McGraw's  judgment  of  the  man  was  correct. 

On  the  other  hand,  Otis  Crandall  came  to  the 
New  York  club  a  few  years  ago  a  raw  country  boy 


58  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

from  Indiana.  I  shall  never  forget  how  he  looked 
the  first  spring  I  saw  him  in  Texas.  The  club 
had  a  large  number  of  recruits  and  was  short  of 
uniforms.  He  was  among  the  last  of  the  hopefuls 
to  arrive  and  there  was  no  suit  for  him,  so,  in  a 
pair  of  regular  trousers  with  his  coat  off,  he  began 
chasing  flies  in  the  outfield.  His  head  hung  down 
on  his  chest,  and,  when  not  playing,  a  cigarette 
drooped  out  of  the  comer  of  his  mouth.  But  he 
turned  out  to  be  a  very  good  fly  chaser,  and 
McGraw  admired  his  persistency. 

"What  are  you?"  McGraw  asked  him  one  day. 

"A  pitcher,"  replied  Crandall.  Two  words 
constitute  an  oration  for  him. 

"  Let 's  see  what  you  've  got,"  said  Me  Graw. 

Crandall  warmed  up,  and  he  did  n't  have  much 
of  anything  besides  a  sweeping  outcurve  and  a 
good  deal  of  speed.  He  looked  less  like  a  pitcher 
than  any  of  the  spring  crop,  but  McGraw  saw 
something  in  him  and  kept  him.  The  result  is  he 
has  turned  out  to  be  one  of  the  most  valuable 
men  on  the  club,  because  he  is  there  in  a  pinch. 
He  could  n't  be  disturbed  if  the  McNamaras  tied 
a  bomb  to  him,  with  a  time  fuse  on  it  set  for  "at 
once. "  He  is  the  sort  of  pitcher  who  is  best  when 


Pitching  in  a  Pinch  59 

things  look  darkest.  I  Ve  heard  the  crowd 
yelling,  when  he  has  been  pitching  on  the  enemy's 
ground,  so  that  a  sixteen-inch  gun  could  n't  have 
been  heard  if  it  had  gone  off  in  the  lot. 

"That  crowd  was  making  some  noise,"  I've 
said  to  Crandall  after  the  inning. 

"Was  it?"  asked  Otie.     "I  didn't  notice  it." 

One  day  in  1911,  he  started  a  game  in  Philadel- 
phia and  three  men  got  on  the  bases  with  no  one 
out,  along  about  the  fourth  or  fifth  inning.  He  shut 
them  out  without  a  run.  It  was  the  first  game  he 
had  started  for  a  long  while,  his  specialty  having 
been  to  enter  a  contest,  after  some  other  pitcher 
had  gotten  into  trouble,  with  two  or  three  men  on 
the  bases  and  scarcely  any  one  out.  After  he 
came  to  the  bench  with  the  threatening  inning 
behind  him,  he  said  to  me: 

"Matty,  I  did  n't  feel  at  home  out  there  to-day 
until  a  lot  of  people  got  on  the  bases.  I  '11  be  all 
right  now. "  And  he  was.  I  believe  that  Crandall  is 
the  best  pitcher  in  a  pinch  in  the  National  League 
and  one  of  the  most  valuable  men  to  a  team,  for  he 
can  play  any  position  and  bats  hard.  Besides  being 
a  great  pinch  pitcher,  he  can  also  hit  in  a  crush,  and 
won  many  games  for  the  Giants  in  1911  that  way. 


60  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

Very  often  spectators  think  that  a  pitcher  has 
lost  his  grip  in  a  pinch,  when  really  he  is  playing 
inside  baseball.  A  game  with  Chicago  in  Chicago 
back  in  1908  (not  the  famous  contest  that  cost 
the  Giants  a  championship ;  I  did  not  have  any  grip 
at  all  that  day;  but  one  earlier  in  the  season)  best 
illustrates  the  point  I  want  to  bring  out.  Mordecai 
Brown  and  I  were  having  a  pitchers'  duel,  and  the 
Giants  were  in  the  lead  by  the  score  of  i  to  o  when 
the  team  took  the  field  for  the  ninth  inning. 

It  was  one  of  those  fragile  games  in  which  one 
run  makes  a  lot  of  difference,  the  sort  that  has  a 
fringe  of  nervous  prostration  for  the  spectators. 
Chance  was  up  first  in  the  ninth  and  he  pushed  a 
base  hit  to  right  field.  Steinfeldt  followed  with  a 
triple  that  brought  Chance  home  and  left  the  run 
which  would  win  the  game  for  the  Cubs  on  third 
base.  The  crowd  was  shouting  like  mad,  thinking 
I  was  done.  I  looked  at  the  hitters,  waiting  to 
come  up,  and  saw  Hofman  and  Tinker  swinging 
their  bats  in  anticipation.  Both  are  dangerous 
men,  but  the  silver  lining  was  my  second  look, 
which  revealed  to  me  Kling  and  Brown  following 
Hofman  and  Tinker. 

Without  a  second's  hesitation,  I  decided  to  pass 


Pitching  in  a  Pinch  61 

both  Hofman  and  Tinker,  because  the  run  on 
third  base  would  win  the  game  anyway  if  it  scored, 
and  with  three  men  on  the  bags  instead  of  one, 
there  would  be  a  remote  chance  for  a  triple 
play,  besides  making  a  force  out  at  the  plate  pos- 
sible. Remember  that  no  one  was  out  at  this 
time.  Kling  and  Brown  had  always  been  easy  for 
me. 

When  I  got  two  balls  on  Hofman,  trying  to  make 
him  hit  at  a  bad  one,  the  throng  stood  up  in  the 
stand  and  tore  splinters  out  of  the  floor  with  its 
feet.  And  then  I  passed  Hofman.  The  spectators 
misunderstood  my  motive. 

"He  's  done.  He  's  all  in,"  shouted  one  man 
in  a  voice  which  was  one  of  the  carrying,  persistent, 
penetrating  sort.  The  crowd  took  the  cry  up 
and  stamped  its  feet  and  cheered  wildly. 

Then  I  passed  Tinker,  a  man,  as  I  have  said 
before,  who  has  had  a  habit  of  making  trouble  for 
me.  The  crowd  quieted  down  somewhat,  per- 
haps because  it  was  not  possible  for  it  to  cheer 
any  louder,  but  probably  because  the  spectators 
thought  that  now  it  would  be  only  a  matter  of  how 
many  the  Cubs  would  win  by.  The  bases  were 
full,  and  no  one  was  out. 


62  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

But  that  wildly  cheering  crowd  had  worked  me 
up  to  greater  effort,  and  I  struck  Kling  out  and 
then  Brown  followed  him  back  to  the  bench  for 
the  same  reason.  Just  one  batter  stood  between 
me  and  a  tied  score  now.  He  was  John  Evers, 
and  the  crowd  having  lost  its  chortle  of  victory, 
was  begging  him  to  make  the  hit  which  would 
bring  just  one  run  over  the  plate.  They  were 
surprised  by  my  recuperation  after  having  passed 
two  men.  Evers  lifted  a  gentle  fly  to  left  field 
and  the  three  men  were  left  on  the  bases.  The 
Giants  eventually  won  that  game  in  the  eleventh 
inning  by  the  score  of  4  to  I. 

But  that  system  does  n't  always  work.  Often 
I  have  passed  a  man  to  get  a  supposedly  poor 
batter  up  and  then  had  him  bang  out  a  base  hit. 
My  first  successful  year  in  the  National  League 
was  1901,  although  I  joined  the  Giants  in  the 
middle  of  the  season  of  1900.  The  Boston  club 
at  that  time  had  a  pitcher  named  "Kid"  Nichols 
who  was  a  great  twirler.  The  first  two  games 
I  pitched  against  the  Boston  club  were  against  this 
man,  and  I  won  the  first  in  Boston  and  the  second 
in  New  York,  the  latter  by  the  score  of  2  to  I. 

Both  teams  then  went  west  for  a  three  weeks' 


Pitching  in  a  Pinch  63 

trip,  and  when  the  Giants  returned  a  series  was 
scheduled  with  Boston  at  the  Polo  Grounds.  There 
was  a  good  deal  of  speculation  as  to  whether  I 
would  again  beat  the  veteran  "Kid"  Nichols, 
and  the  newspapers,  discussing  the  promised 
pitching  duel,  stirred  up  considerable  enthusiasm 
over  it.  Of  course,  I,  the  youngster,  was  eager  to 
make  it  three  straight  over  the  veteran.  Neither 
team  had  scored  at  the  beginning  of  the  eighth 
inning.  Boston  runners  got  on  second  and  third 
bases  with  two  out,  and  FredTenney,  then  playing 
first  base  on  the  Boston  club,  was  up  at  the  bat. 
He  had  been  hitting  me  hard  that  day,  and  I 
decided  to  pass  him  and  take  a  chance  on  "  Dick*  * 
Cooley,  the  next  man,  and  a  weak  batter.  So 
Tenney  got  his  base  on  ba1ls,  and  the  sacks  were 
full. 

Two  strikes  were  gathered  on  Cooley,  one  at 
which  he  swung  and  the  other  called,  and  I  was 
beginning  to  congratulate  myself  on  my  excellent 
judgment,  which  was  really  counting  my  chickens 
while  they  were  still  in  the  incubator.  I  at- 
tempted to  slip  a  fast  one  over  on  Cooley  and  got 
the  ball  a  little  too  high.  The  result  was  that  he 
stepped  into  it  and  made  a  three  base  hit  which 


64  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

eventually  won  the  game  by  the  score  of  3  to  o. 
That  was  once  when  passing  a  man  to  get  a  weak 
batter  did  not  work. 

I  have  always  been  against  a  tvirler  pitching 
himself  out,  when  there  is  no  necessity  for  it,  as  so 
many  youngsters  do.  They  bum  them  through 
for  eight  innings  and  then,  when  the  pinch  comes, 
something  is  lacking.  A  pitcher  must  remember 
that  there  are  eight  other  men  in  the  game, 
drawing  more  or  less  salary  to  stop  balls  hit  at 
them,  and  he  must  have  confidence  in  them. 
Some  pitchers  will  put  all  that  they  have  on  each 
ball.  This  is  foolish  for  two  reasons. 

In  the  first  place,  it  exhausts  the  man  physically 
and,  when  the  pinch  comes,  he  has  not  the  strength 
to  last  it  out.  But  second  and  more  important, 
it  shows  the  batters  everything  that  he  has,  which 
is  senseless.  A  man  should  always  hold  something 
in  reserve,  a  surprise  to  spring  when  things  get 
tight.  If  a  pitcher  has  displayed  his  whole  assort- 
ment to  the  batters  in  the  early  part  of  the  game 
and  has  used  all  his  speed  and  his  fastest  breaking 
curve,  then,  when  the  crisis  comes,  he  "hasn't 
anything"  to  fall  back  on. 

Like  all  youngsters,  I  was  eager  to  make  a 


Pitching  in  a  Pinch  65 

record  during  my  first  year  in  the  Big  League, 
and  in  one  of  the  first  games  I  pitched  against 
Cincinnati  I  made  the  mistake  of  putting  all  that 

1  had  on  every  ball.     We  were  playing  at  the  Polo 
Grounds,  and  the  Giants  had  the  visitors  beaten 

2  to  o,  going  into  the  last  inning.     I  had  been 
popping  them  through,  trying  to  strike  out  every 
hitter  and  had  not  held  anything  in  reserve.     The 
first  man  to  the  bat  in  the  ninth  got  a  single,  the 
next  a  two  bagger,  and  by  the  time  they  had 
stopped  hitting  me,  the  scorer  had  credited  the 
Cincinnati  club  with  four  runs,  and  we  lost  the 
game,  4  to  2. 

I  was  very  much  down  in  the  mouth  over  the 
defeat,  after  I  had  the  game  apparently  won,  and 
George  Davis,  then  the  manager  of  the  Giants, 
noticed  it  in  the  clubhouse. 

" Never  mind,  Matty,"  he  said,  "it  was  worth 
it.  The  game  ought  to  teach  you  not  to  pitch 
your  head  off  when  you  don't  need  to. " 

It  did.  I  have  never  forgotten  that  lesson. 
Many  spectators  wonder  why  a  pitcher  does  not 
work  as  hard  as  he  can  all  through  the  game, 
instead  of  just  in  the  pinches.  If  he  did,  they 
argue,  there  would  be  no  pinches.  But  there 


66  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

would  be,  and,  if  the  pitcher  did  not  conserve  his 
energy,  the  pinches  would  usually  go  against  him. 

Sometimes  bawling  at  a  man  in  a  pinch  has  the 
opposite  effect  from  that  desired.  Clarke  Griffith, 
recently  of  Cincinnati,  has  a  reputation  in  the 
Big  Leagues  for  being  a  bad  man  to  upset  a  pitcher 
from  the  coacher's  box.  Off  the  field  he  is  one  of 
the  decentest  fellows  in  the  game,  but,  when 
talking  to  a  pitcher,  he  is  very  irritating.  I  was 
working  in  a  game  against  the  Reds  in  Cincinnati 
one  day,  just  after  he  had  been  made  manager  of 
the  club,  and  Griffith  spent  the  afternoon  and  a  lot 
of  breath  trying  to  get  me  going.  The  Giants 
were  ahead,  5  to  I,  at  the  beginning  of  the  seventh. 
In  the  Cincinnati  half  of  that  inning,  "Mike" 
Mitchell  tripled  with  the  bases  full  and  later 
tallied  on  an  outfield  fly  which  tied  the  score. 
The  effect  this  had  on  Griffith  was  much  the  same 
as  that  of  a  lighted  match  on  gasolene. 

1 '  Now,  you  big  blond, ' '  he  shouted  at  me, ' '  we '  ve 
got  you  at  last." 

I  expected  McGraw  to  take  me  out,  as  it  looked 
in  that  inning  as  if  I  was  not  right,  but  he  did  not, 
and  I  pitched  along  up  to  the  ninth  with  the  score 
still  tied  and  with  Griffith,  the  carping  critic,  on 


Pitching  in  a  Pinch  67 

the  side  lines.  We  failed  to  count  in  our  half,  but 
the  first  Cincinnati  batter  got  on  the  bases,  stole 
second,  and  went  to  third  on  a  sacrifice.  He  was 
there  with  one  out. 

"Here  's  where  we  get  you,"  chortled  Griffith. 
"This  is  the  point  at  which  you  receive  a  terrible 
showing  up." 

I  tried  to  get  the  next  batter  to  hit  at  bad  balls, 
and  he  refused,  so  that  I  lost  him.  I  was  afraid 
to  lay  the  ball  over  the  plate  in  this  crisis,  as  a  hit 
or  an  outfield  fly  meant  the  game.  Hoblitzell 
and  Mitchell,  two  of  Griffith's  heaviest  batters, 
were  scheduled  to  arrive  at  the  plate  next. 

"You  ought  to  be  up,  Mike,"  yelled  the  Cin- 
cinnati manager  at  Mitchell,  who  was  swinging  a 
couple  of  sticks  preparatory  to  his  turn  at  the  bat. 
"Too  bad  you  won't  get  a  lick,  old  man,  because 
Hobby's  going  to  break  it  up  right  here. " 

Something  he  said  irritated  me,  but,  instead  of 
worrying  me,  it  made  me  feel  more  like  pitching. 
I  seldom  talk  to  a  coacher,  but  I  turned  to  Griffith 
and  said: 

"I  '11  bring  Mike  up,  and  we  '11  see  what  he  can 
do." 

I  deliberately  passed  Hoblitzell  without  even 


68  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

giving  him  a  chance  to  hit  at  a  single  ball.  It 
wasn't  to  make  a  grand  stand  play  I  did  this, 
but  because  it  was  baseball.  One  run  would  win 
the  game  anyway,  and,  with  more  men  on  the 
bases,  there  were  more  plays  possible.  Besides 
Hoblitzell  is  a  nasty  hitter,  and  I  thought  that  I 
had  a  better  chance  of  making  Mitchell  hit  the 
ball  on  the  ground,  a  desirable  thing  under  the 
conditions. 

"Now,  Mike,"  urged  Griffith,  as  Mitchell 
stepped  up  to  the  plate,  "go  as  far  as  you  like. 
Blot  up  the  bases,  old  boy.  This  blond  is  gone. " 

That  sort  of  talk  never  bothers  me.  I  had 
better  luck  with  Mitchell  than  I  had  hoped.  He 
struck  out.  The  next  batter  was  easy,  and  the 
Giants  won  the  game  in  the  .tenth  inning.  Accord  - 
ing  to  the  newspaper  reports,  I  won  twenty-one 
or  twenty-two  games  before  Cincinnati  beat  me 
again,  so  it  can  be  seen  that  joshing  in  pinches  is 
not  effective  against  all  pitchers.  A  manager 
must  judge  the  temperament  of  his  victim.  But 
Griffith  has  never  stopped  trying  to  rag  me.  In 
191 1,  when  the  Giants  were  west  on  their  final  trip, 
I  was  warming  up  in  Cincinnati  before  a  game,  and 
he  was  batting  out  flies  near  me.  He  would 


Pitching  in  a  Pinch  69 

talk  to  me  between  each  ball  he  hit  to  the 
outfield. 

"Got  anything  to-day,  Matty?"  he  asked. 
"Guess  there  ain't  many  games  left  in  you. 
You  're  getting  old. " 

When  I  broke  into  the  National  League,  the 
Brooklyn  club  had  as  bad  a  bunch  of  men  to 
bother  a  pitcher  as  I  ever  faced.  The  team  had 
won  the  championship  in  1900,  and  naturally  they 
were  all  pretty  chesty.  When  I  first  began  to 
play  in  1901,  this  crowd — Kelly,  Jennings,  Keeler 
and  Hanlon — got  after  me  pretty  strong.  But  I 
seemed  to  get  pitching  nourishment  out  of  their 
line  of  conversation  and  won  a  lot  of  games.  At 
last,  so  I  have  been  told,  Hanlon,  who  was  the 
manager,  said  to  his  conversational  ball  players: 

"Lay  off  that  Mathewson  kid.  Leave  him 
alone.  He  likes  the  chatter  you  fellows  spill  out 
there." 

They  did  not  bother  me  after  that,  but  this 
bunch  spoiled  many  a  promising  young  pitcher. 

Speaking  of  sizing  up  the  temperarneut  of  bat- 
ters and  pitchers  in  a  pinch,  few  persons  realize 
that  it  was  a  little  bit  of  carelessly  placed  conversa- 
tion belonging  to  "Chief"  Bender,  the  Indian 


70  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

pitcher  on  the  Athletics,  that  did  as  much  aa 
anything  to  give  the  Giants  the  first  game  in  the 
1911  world's  series. 

"Josh"  Devore,  the  leftfielder  on  the  New  York 
team,  is  an  in-and-out  batter,  but  he  is  a  bulldog 
in  a  pinch  and  is  more  apt  to  make  a  hit  in  a  tight 
place  than  when  the  bases  are  empty.  And  he  is 
quite  as  likely  to  strike  out.  He  is  the  type  of  ball 
player  who  cannot  be  rattled.  With  "Chief" 
Myers  on  second  base,  the  score  tied,  and  two  out, 
Devore  came  to  the  bat  in  the  seventh  inning  of 
the  first  game. 

"Look  at  little  'Josh/"  said  Bender,  who  had 
been  talking  to  batters  all  through  the  game. 

Devore  promptly  got  himself  into  the  hole  with 
two  strikes  and  two  balls  on  him,  but  a  little 
drawback  like  that  never  worries  "Josh." 

"I  'm  going  to  pitch  you  a  curved  ball  over  the 
outside  corner, "  shouted  Bender  as  he  wound  up. 

"I  know  it,  Chief,"  replied  "Josh,"  and  he  set 
himself  to  receive  just  that  sort  of  delivery. 

Up  came  the  predicted  curve  over  the  outside 
corner.  "Josh"  hit  it  to  left  field  for  two  bases, 
and  brought  home  the  winning  run.  Bender 
evidently  thought  that,  by  telling  Devore  what  he 


Pitching  in  a  Pinch  71 

was  actually  going  to  pitch,  he  would  make  him 
think  he  was  going  to  cross  him. 

"I  knew  it  would  be  a  curve  ball, "  Devore  told 
me  after  the  game.  "With  two  and  two,  he  would 
be  crazy  to  hand  me  anything  else.  When  he 
made  that  crack,  I  guessed  that  he  was  trying  to 
cross  me  by  telling  the  truth.  Before  he  spoke, 
I  was  n't  sure  which  corner  he  was  going  to  put  it 
over,  but  he  tipped  me." 

Some  batters  might  have  been  fooled  by  those 
tactics.  It  was  taking  a  chance  in  a  pinch,  and 
Bender  lost. 

Very  few  of  the  fans  who  saw  this  first  game  of 
the  1911  world's  series  realize  that  the  "break"  in 
that  contest  came  in  the  fifth  inning.  The  score 
was  tied,  with  runners  on  second  and  third  bases 
with  two  out,  when  "Eddie "Collins,  the  fast  second 
baseman  of  the  Athletics,  and  a  dangerous  hitter, 
came  to  the  bat.  I  realized  that  I  was  skating  on 
thin  ice  and  was  putting  everything  I  had  on  the 
ball.  Collins  hit  a  slow  one  down  the  first  base 
line,  about  six  feet  inside  the  bag. 

With  the  hit,  I  ran  over  to  cover  the  base,  and 
Merkle  made  for  the  ball,  but  he  had  to  get  directly 
in  my  line  of  approach  to  field  it.  Collins,  steam- 


72  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

ing  down  the  base  line,  realized  that,  if  he  could 
get  the  decision  at  first  on  this  hit,  his  team  would 
probably  win  the  game,  as  the  two  other  runners 
could  score  easily.  In  a  flash,  I  was  aware  of  this, 
too. 

"I  '11  take  it,"  yelled  Merkle,  as  he  stopped  to 
pick  up  the  ball. 

Seeing  Merkle  and  me  in  front  of  him,  both 
heavy  men,  Collins  knew  that  he  could  not  get 
past  us  standing  up.  When  still  ten  or  twelve 
feet  from  the  bag,  he  slid,  hoping  to  take  us  una- 
awares  and  thus  avoid  being  touched.  He  could 
then  scramble  to  the  bag.  As  soon  as  he  jumped, 
I  realized  what  he  hoped  to  do,  and,  fearing  that 
Merkle  would  miss  him,  I  grabbed  the  first  base- 
man and  hurled  him  at  Collins.  It  was  an  old- 
fashioned,  football  shove,  Merkle  landing  on 
Collins  and  touching  him  out.  A  great  many  of 
the  spectators  believed  that  I  had  interfered  with 
Merkle  on  the  play.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  thought 
that  it  was  the  crisis  of  the  game  and  knew  that, 
if  Collins  was  not  put  out,  we  would  probably  lose. 
That  football  shove  was  a  brand  new  play  to  me 
in  baseball,  invented  on  the  spur  of  the  second,  but 
it  worked. 


Pitching  in  a  Pinch  73 

In  minor  leagues,  there  are  fewer  games  in  which 
a  "break"  comes.  It  does  not  develop  in  all  Big 
League  contests  by  any  means.  Sometimes  one 
team  starts  to  win  in  the  first  inning  and  simply 
runs  away  from  the  other  club  all  the  way.  But 
in  all  close  games  the  pinch  shows  up. 

It  happens  in  many  contests  in  the  major 
leagues  because  of  the  almost  perfect  baseball 
played.  Depending  on  his  fielders,  a  manager 
can  play  for  this  "break."  And  when  the  pinch 
comes,  it  is  a  case  of  the  batter's  nerve  against  the 
pitcher's. 


IV 


Big    League   Pitchers  and  Their 
Peculiarities. 

Nearly  Every  Pitcher  in  the  Big  Leagues  Has  Some 
Temperamental  or  Mechanical  Flaw  which  he  is 
Constantly  Trying  to  Hide,  and  which  Opposing 
Batters  are  always  Endeavoring  to  Uncover — The 
Giants  Drove  Coveleski,  the  Man  who  Beat  them 
out  of  a  Pennant,  Back  to  the  Minor  Leagues  by 
Taunting  him  on  One  Sore  Point — Weaknesses 
of  Other  Stars. 

LIKE  great  artists  in  other  fields  of  endeavor, 
many    Big   League   pitchers   are   tempera- 
mental.     "Bugs"   Raymond,   "Rube"  Waddell, 
"Slim"   Sallee,  and  "Wild  Bill"    Donovan   are 
ready  examples  of  the  temperamental  type.     The 
first  three  are  the  sort  of  men  of  whom  the  man- 
ager is  never  sure.    He  does  not  know,  when  they 
come  into  the  ball  park,  whether  or  not  they  are 
74 


Pitchers  and  Their  Peculiarities     75 

in  condition  to  work.  They  always  carry  with 
them  a  delightful  atmosphere  of  uncertainty. 

In  contrast  to  this  eccentric  group,  there  are 
those  with  certain  mechanical  defects  in  their 
pitching  of  which  opposing  clubs  take  advantage. 
Last  comes  the  irritable,  nervous  box  artist 
who  must  have  things  just  so,  even  down  to  the 
temperature,  before  he  can  work  satisfactorily. 

"As  delicate  as  prima  donnas,"  says  John 
McGraw  of  this  variety. 

He  speaks  of  the  man  who  loses  his  love  for  his 
art  when  his  shirt  is  too  tight  or  a  toe  is  sore.  This 
style,  perhaps,  is  the  most  difficult  for  a  manager 
to  handle,  unless  it  is  the  uncertain,  eccentric  sort. 

As  soon  as  a  new  pitcher  breaks  into  the  Big 
Leagues,  seven  clubs  are  studying  him  with 
microscopic  care  to  discover  some  flaw  in  his 
physical  style  or  a  temperamental  weakness 
on  which  his  opponents  can  play.  Naturally, 
if  the  man  has  such  a  "groove,"  his  team  mates 
are  endeavoring  to  hide  it,  but  it  soon  leaks  out 
and  becomes  general  gossip  around  the  circuit. 
Then  the  seven  clubs  start  aiming  at  this  flaw, 
and  oftentimes  the  result  is  that  a  promising  young 
pitcher,  because  he  has  some  one  definite  weakness. 


76  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

goes  back  to  the  minors.  A  crack  in  the  tempera- 
ment is  the  worst.  Mechanical  defects  can  usually 
be  remedied  when  discovered. 

Few  baseball  fans  know  that  the  Giants  drove 
a  man  back  to  the  minor  leagues  who  once  pitched 
them  out  of  a  pennant.  The  club  was  tipped  off 
to  a  certain,  unfortunate  circumstance  in  the 
twirler's  early  life  which  left  a  lasting  impression 
on  his  mind.  The  players  never  let  him  forget 
this  when  he  was  in  a  game,  and  it  was  like 
constantly  hitting  him  on  a  boil. 

Coveleski  won  three  games  for  the  Philadelphia 
National  League  club  from  the  Giants  back  in 
1908,  when  one  of  these  contests  would  have  meant 
a  pennant  to  the  New  York  club  and  possibly  a 
world's  championship.  That  was  the  season  the 
fight  was  decided  in  a  single  game  with  the  Chicago 
Cubs  after  the  regular  schedule  had  been  played 
out.  Coveleski  was  hailed  as  a  wonder  for  his 
performance. 

Just  after  the  season  closed,  "  Tacks  "  Ashenbach, 
the  scout  for  the  Cincinnati  club,  now  dead, 
and  formerly  a  manager  in  the  league  where 
Coveleski  got  his  start,  came  to  McGraw  and 
laughed  behind  his  hand. 


Pitchers  and  Their  Peculiarities     77 

"Mac,"  he  said,  "I  'm  surprised  you  let  that  big 
Pole  beat  you  out  of  a  championship.  I  can  give 
you  the  prescription  to  use  every  time  that  he 
starts  working.  All  you  have  to  do  is  to  imitate 
a  snare  drum." 

"What  are  you  trying  to  do — kid  me?"  asked 
McGraw,  for  he  was  still  tolerably  irritable  over 
the  outcome  of  the  season. 

"Try  it,"  was  Ashenbach's  laconic  reply. 

The  result  was  that  the  first  game  Coveleski 
started  against  the  Giants  the  next  season,  there 
was  a  chorus  of  "rat-a-tat-tats"  from  the  bench, 
with  each  of  the  coachers  doing  a  "rat-a-tat-tat" 
solo,  for  we  decided,  after  due  consideration, 
this  was  the  way  to  imitate  a  snare  drum.  We 
would  have  tried  to  imitate  a  calliope  if  we  had 
thought  that  it  would  have  done  any  good  against 
this  pitcher. 

"I'll  hire  a  fife  and  drum  corps  if  the  tip  is 
worth  anything,"  declared  McGraw. 

"Rat-a-tat-tat!  Rat-a-tat-tat!"  came  the 
chorus  as  Coveleski  wound  up  to  pitch  the  first 
ball.  It  went  wide  of  the  plate. 

' '  Rat-a-tat-tat !  Rat-a-tat-tat ! "  it  was  repeated 
all  through  the  inning.  When  Coveleski  walked 


78  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

to  the  Philadelphia  bench  at  the  end  of  the  first 
round,  after  the  Giants  had  made  three  runs  off 
him,  he  looked  over  at  us  and  shouted: 
"You  think  you're  smart,  don't  you?" 
"Rat-a-tat-tat!  Rat-a-tat-tat!"  was  the  only 
reply.  But  now  we  knew  we  had  him.  When  a 
pitcher  starts  to  talk  back,  it  is  a  cinch  that  he  is 
irritated.  So  the  deadly  chorus  was  kept  up  in 
volleys,  until  the  umpire  stopped  us,  and  then 
it  had  to  be  in  a  broken  fire,  but  always  there 
was  the  "Rat-a-tat-tat!  Rat-a-tat-tat!"  When 
Coveleski  looked  at  McGraw  coaching  on  third 
base,  the  manager  made  as  if  to  beat  a  snare  drum, 
and  as  he  glanced  at  Latham  stationed  at  first, 
"Arlie"  would  reply  with  the  "rat-a-tat-tat." 

The  team  on  the  bench  sounded  like  a  fife 
and  drum  corps  without  the  fifes,  and  Coveleski 
got  no  peace.  In  the  fourth  inning,  after  the  game 
had  been  hopelessly  lost  by  the  Philadelphia 
club,  Coveleski  was  taken  out.  We  did  not 
understand  the  reason  for  it,  but  we  all  knew  that 
we  had  found  Coveleski's  "groove"  with  that 
1 '  rat-a-tat-tat ' '  chorus.  The  man  who  had  beaten 
the  New  York  club  out  of  a  pennant  never  won 
another  game  against  the  Giants. 


Pitchers  and  Their  Peculiarities     79 

"Say,"  said  McGraw  to  "Tacks"  Ashenbach 
the  next  time  the  club  was  in  Cincinnati,  "there 
are  two  things  I  want  to  ask  you.  First,  why  does 
that  'rat-a-tat-tat'  thing  get  under  Coveleski's 
skin  so  badly,  and,  second,  why  didn't  you 
mention  it  to  us  when  he  was  beating  the  club  out 
of  a  championship  last  fall?" 

"Never  thought  of  it,"  asserted  Ashenbach. 
"Just  chanced  to  be  telling  stories  one  day  last 
winter  about  the  old  times  in  the  Tri-State,  when 
that  weakness  of  Coveleski's  happened  to  pop 
into  my  mind.  Thought  maybe  he  was  cured." 

"Cured!"  echoed  McGraw.  "Only  way  he 
could  be  cured  of  that  is  to  poison  him.  But  tip 
me.  Why  is  it?" 

"Well,  this  is  the  way  I  heard  it,"  answered 
Ashenbach.  "When  he  was  a  coal  miner  back 
in  Shamokin,  Pennsylvania,  he  got  stuck  on  some 
Jane  who  was  very  fond  of  music.  Everybody 
who  was  any  one  played  in  the  Silver  Cornet 
Band  down  in  Melodeon  Hall  on  Thursday  nights. 
The  girl  told  Coveleski  that  she  couldn't  see 
him  with  an  X-ray  unless  he  broke  into  the  band. 

'"But  I  can't  play  any  instrument,'  said  the 
Pole. 


8o  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

'"Well,  get  busy  and  learn,  and  don't  show 
around  here  until  you  have,'  answered  the  girl. 

"Now  Coveleski  had  no  talent  for  music, 
so  he  picked  out  the  snare  drum  as  his  victim  and 
started  practising  regularly,  getting  some  instruc- 
tion from  the  local  bandmaster.  After  he  had 
driven  all  the  neighbors  pretty  nearly  crazy, 
the  bandmaster  said  he  would  give  him  a  show 
at  the  big  annual  concert,  when  he  tried  to  get 
all  the  pieces  in  his  outfit  that  he  could.  Things 
went  all  right  until  it  was  time  for  Coveleski 
to  come  along  with  a  little  bit  on  the  snare  drum, 
and  then  he  was  nowhere  in  the  neighborhood. 
He  didn't  even  swing  at  it.  But  later,  when 
the  leader  waved  for  a  solo  from  the  fiddle, 
Coveleski  mistook  it  for  his  hit-and-run  sign  and 
came  in  so  strong  on  the  snare  drum  that  no  one 
could  identify  the  fiddle  in  the  mixup. 

"The  result  was  that  the  leader  asked  for 
waivers  on  old  Coveleski  very  promptly,  and  the 
girl  was  not  long  in  following  suit.  That  snare 
drum  incident  has  been  the  sore  point  in  his  make- 
up ever  since." 

"I  wish  I  'd  known  it  last  fall  about  the  first 
of  September,"  declared  McGraw. 


Pitchers  and  Their  Peculiarities     81 

But  the  real  snapper  came  later  when  the 
Cincinnati  club  was  whipsawed  on  the  information. 
In  a  trade  with  Philadelphia,  Griffith  got  Coveleski 
for  Cincinnati  along  with  several  other  players. 
Each  game  he  started  against  us  he  got  the  old 
"rat-a-tat-tat."  Griffith  protested  to  the  um- 
pires, but  it  is  impossible  to  stop  a  thing  of  that 
sort  even  though  the  judges  of  play  did  try. 

The  Pole  did  not  finish  another  game  against 
the  Giants  until  his  last  in  the  Big  League.  One 
day  we  were  hitting  him  near  and  far,  and  the 
"rat-a-tat-tat"  chorus  was  only  interrupted  by 
the  rattle  of  the  bats  against  the  ball,  when  he 
looked  in  at  the  bench  to  see  if  Griffith  wanted 
to  take  him  out,  for  it  was  about  his  usual  leaving 
time. 

"Stay  in  there  and  get  it,"  shouted  back  Griff. 

Coveleski  did.  He  absorbed  nineteen  hits 
and  seventeen  runs  at  the  hands  of  the  Giants, 
this  man  who  had  taken  a  championship  of  the 
National  League  away  from  us. 

That  night  Griffith  asked  for  waivers  on  him, 
and  he  left  the  Big  Leagues  for  good.  He  was  a 
good  twirler,  except  for  that  one  flaw,  which  cost 
him  his  place  in  the  big  show.  There  is  little 


82  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

mercy  among  professional  ball  players  when  a 
game  is  at  stake,  especially  if  the  man  has  taken 
a  championship  away  from  a  team  by  insisting 
upon  working  out  of  his  turn,  so  he  can  win  games 
that  will  benefit  his  club  not  a  scintilla. 

Mordecai  Brown,  the  great  pitcher  of  the 
Chicago  Cubs  and  the  man  who  did  more  than 
any  other  one  player  to  bring  four  National 
League  pennants  and  two  world's  championships 
to  that  club,  has  a  physical  deformity  which 
has  turned  out  to  be  an  advantage.  Many  years 
ago,  "Brown  lost  most  of  the  first  ringer  of  his 
right  hand  in  an  argument  with  a  feed  cutter, 
said  finger  being  amputated  at  the  second  joint; 
while  his  third  finger  is  shorter  than  it  should  be, 
because  a  hot  grounder  carried  part  of  it  away 
one  day.  In  some  strange  way,  Brown  has 
achieved  wonders  with  this  crippled  hand.  It 
is  on  account  of  the  missing  finger  that  he  is 
called  "Three  Fingered"  Brown,  and  he  is  bet- 
ter known  by  that  appellation  than  by  his  real 
name. 

Brown  beat  the  Giants  a  hard  game  one  day 
in  191 1,  pitching  against  me.  He  had  a  big  curve, 
lots  of  speed,  and  absolute  control.  The  Giants 


Pitchers  and  Their  Peculiarities     83 

could  not  touch  him.  Next  day  McGraw  was 
out  wanning  up  with  Arthur  Wilson,  the  young 
catcher  on  the  club. 

"Wonder  if  he  gets  any  new  curve  with  that 
short  first  finger?"  said  McGraw,  and  thereupon 
crooked  his  own  initial  digit  and  began  trying 
to  throw  the  ball  in  different  ways  off  it  to  see 
what  the  result  would  be.  Finally  he  decided: 

"No,  I  guess  he  doesn't  get  anything  extra 
with  the  abbreviated  finger,  but  that 's  lucky  for 
you  fellows,  because,  if  I  thought  he  did,  I  'd  have 
a  surgeon  out  here  to-morrow  operating  on  tho 
first  fingers  of  each  of  you  pitchers." 

Brown  is  my  idea  of  the  almost  perfect  pitcher 
He  is  always  ready  to  work.  It  is  customary  for 
most  managers  in  the  Big  Leagues  to  say  to  a  man 
on  the  day  he  is  slated  to  pitch : 

"Well,  how  do  you  feel  to-day?  Want  to 
work?" 

Then  if  the  twirler  is  not  right,  he  has  a  chance 
to  say  so.  But  Brown  always  replies: 

"Yes,  I'm  ready." 

He  likes  to  pitch  and  is  in  chronic  condition. 
It  will  usually  be  found  at  the  end  of  a  season 
that  he  has  taken  part  in  more  games  than  any 


84  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

other  pitcher  in  the  country.  He  held  the  Chicago 
pitching  staff  together  in  1911. 

"Three  Fingered"  Brown  is  a  finished  pitcher 
in  all  departments  of  the  game.  Besides  being  a 
great  worker,  he  is  a  wonderful  fielder  and  sure 
death  on  bunts.  He  spends  weeks  in  the  spring 
preparing  himself  to  field  short  hits  in  the  infield, 
and  it  is  fatal  to  try  to  bunt  against  him.  He 
has  perfected  and  used  successfully  for  three  years 
a  play  invented  by  "Joe"  McGinnity,  the  former 
Gitint  pitcher.  This  play  is  with  men  on  first 
and  second  bases  and  no  one  out  or  one  out. 
The  batter  tries  to  sacrifice,  but  instead  of  fielding 
the  ball  to  first  base,  which  would  advance  the 
two  base  runners  as  intended,  Brown  makes  the 
play  to  third  and  thus  forces  out  the  man  nearest 
the  plate.  This  is  usually  successful  unless  the 
bunt  is  laid  down  perfectly  along  the  first  base 
line,  so  that  the  ball  cannot  be  thrown  to  third 
base. 

The  Cubs  have  always  claimed  it  was  this  play 
which  broke  the  Detroit  club's  heart  in  the  world's 
series  in  1908,  and  turned  the  tide  so  that  the 
Cubs  took  the  championship.  The  American 
League  team  was  leading  in  the  first  game,  and 


Pitchers  and  Their  Peculiarities     83 

runners  were  on  first  and  second  bases,  "Ty" 
Cobb  being  on  the  middle  sack.  It  was  evident 
that  the  batter  would  try  to  sacrifice.  Brown 
walked  over  to  Steinfeldt,  playing  third  base, 
pulling  out  a  chew  of  tobacco  as  he  went. 

"No  matter  what  this  guy  does  or  where  he 
hits  it,  stick  to  your  bag,"  ordered  Brown. 

Then  he  put  the  chew  of  tobacco  in  his  mouth, 
a  sign  which  augurs  ill  for  his  opponents,  and 
pitched  a  low  one  to  the  batter,  a  perfect  ball  to 
bunt.  He  followed  the  pitch  through  and  was  on 
top  of  the  plate  as  the  batter  laid  it  down.  The 
ball  rolled  slowly  down  the  third  base  line  until 
Brown  pounced  on  it.  He  whirled  and  drove  the 
ball  at  Steinfeldt,  getting  Cobb  by  a  foot.  That 
play  carried  Detroit  off  its  feet,  as  a  sudden  reversal 
often  will  a  ball  club,  when  things  are  apparently 
breaking  for  it.  Cobb,  the  Tigers'  speed  flash, 
had  been  caught  at  third  base  on  an  attempted 
sacrifice,  an  unheard  of  play,  and,  from  that 
point  on,  the  American  Leaguers  wilted,  according 
to  the  stories  of  Chance  and  his  men. 

It  is  Brown's  perfect  control  that  has  permit- 
ted catchers  like  Kling  and  Archer  to  make  such 
great  records  as  throwers.  This  pitcher  can  afford 


86  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

to  waste  a  ball — that  is,  pitch  out  so  the  batter 
cannot  hit  it,  but  putting  the  catcher  in  a  perfect 
position  to  throw — and  then  he  knows  he  can  get 
the  next  one  over.  A  catcher's  efficiency  as  a 
thrower  depends  largely  on  the  pitcher's  ability 
to  have  good  enough  control  of  the  ball  to  be  able 
to  pitch  out  when  it  is  necessary.  Brown  helps 
a  catcher  by  the  way  in  which  he  watches  the 
bases,  not  permitting  the  runners  to  take  any  lead 
on  him.  All  around,  I  think  that  he  is  one  of  the 
most  finished  pitchers  of  the  game. 

Russell  Ford,  of  the  New  York  American  League 
club,  has  a  hard  pitching  motion  because  he  seems 
to  throw  a  spit  ball  with  a  jerk.  He  cannot  pitch 
more  than  one  good  game  in  four  or  five  days. 
McGraw  had  detected  this  weakness  from  watch- 
ing the  Highlanders  play  before  the  post-season 
series  in  1910,  and  took  advantage  of  it. 

"If  Ford  pitches  to-day,"  said  McGraw  to  his 
team  in  the  clubhouse  before  the  first  game,  "wait 
everything  out  to  the  last  minute.  Make  him 
pitch  every  ball  you  can." 

McGraw  knew  that  the  strain  on  Ford's  arm 
would  get  him  along  toward  the  end  of  the  game. 
In  the  eighth  inning  the  score  was  tied  when 


Pitchers  and  Their  Peculiarities      87 

Devore  came  to  the  bat.  No  crack  in  Ford  was 
perceptible  to  the  rest  of  us,  but  McGraw  must 
have  detected  some  slight  sign  of  weakening. 
He  stopped  "Josh"  on  the  way  to  the  plate  and 
ordered : 

"Now  go  ahead  and  get  him." 

By  the  time  the  inning  was  over,  the  Giants 
had  made  four  runs,  and  eventually  won  the  game 
by  the  score  of  5  to  I.  McGraw  just  played  for 
this  flaw  in  Ford's  pitching,  and  hung  his  whole 
plan  of  battle  on  the  chance  of  it  showing. 

"Old  Cy"  Young  has  the  absolutely  perfect 
pitching  motion.  When  he  jumped  from  the 
National  League  to  the  Boston  American  League 
club  some  years  ago,  during  the  war  times,  many 
National  League  players  thought  that  he  was 
through. 

"What,"  said  Fred  Clarke,  the  manager  of  the 
Pittsburg  club,  "you  American  Leaguers  letting 
that  old  boy  make  good  in  your  set?  Why,  he 
was  done  when  he  jumped  the  National.  He  'd 
lost  his  speed." 

"  But  you  ought  to  see  his  curve  ball,"  answered 
"Bill"  Dineen,  then  pitching  for  the  Boston 
Americans. 


88  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

"Curve  ball,"  echoed  Clarke.  "He  never  had 
any  curve  that  it  did  n't  take  a  microscope  to 
find.  He  depended  on  his  speed." 

"Well,  he's  got  one  now,"  replied  Dineen. 

Clarke  had  a  chance  to  look  at  the  curve  ball 
later,  for,  with  Dineen,  Young  did  a  lot  toward 
winning  the  world's  championship  for  Boston 
from  Pitteburg  in  1903.  The  old  pitcher  was 
vrise  enough  to  realize,  when  he  began  to  lose  his 
speed,  that  he  would  have  to  develop  a  curve  ball 
or  go  back  to  the  minors,  and  he  set  to  work  and 
produced  a  peach.  He  is  still  pitching — for  the 
National  League  now — and  he  will  win  a  lot  of 
games  yet.  When  he  came  back  in  1911,  the 
American  Leaguers  said: 

"What,  going  to  let  that  old  man  in  your  show 
again?  He's  done." 

Maybe  he  will  yet  figure  in  another  world's 
championship.  One  never  can  tell.  Anyway,  he 
has  taken  a  couple  of  falls  out  of  Pittsburg  just 
for  good  luck  since  he  came  back  to  the  National 
League. 

Some  pitchers  depend  largely  on  their  motions 
to  fool  batters.  ' '  Motion  pitchers ' '  they  might  be 
called.  Such  an  elaborate  wind-up  is  developed 


Pitchers  and  Their  Peculiarities      89 

that  it  is  hard  for  a  hitter  to  tell  when  and  from. 
where  the  ball  is  coming.  "Slim"  Sallee  of  the 
St.  Louis  Nationals  has  n't  any  curve  to  mention 
and  he  lacks  speed,  but  he  wins  a  lot  of  ball  games 
on  his  motion. 

"It 's  a  crime,"  says  McGraw,  "to  let  a  fellow 
like  that  beat  you.  Why,  he  has  so  little  on  the 
ball  that  it  looks  like  one  of  those  Salome  dancers 
when  it  comes  up  to  the  plate,  and  actually  makes 
me  blush." 

But  Sallee  will  take  a  long  wind-up  and  shoot 
one  off  his  shoe  tops  and  another  from  his  shoulder 
while  he  is  facing  second  base.  He  has  good 
control,  has  catalogued  the  weaknesses  of  the 
batters,  and  can  work  the  corners.  With  this 
capital,  he  was  winning  ball  games  for  the  Cardinals 
in  1911  until  he  fell  off  the  water  wagon.  He  is 
different  from  Raymond  in  that  respect.  When 
he  is  on  the  vehicle,  he  is  on  it,  and,  when  he  is  off, 
he  is  distinctly  a  pedestrian. 
The  way  the  Giants  try  to  beat  Sallee  is  to  get 
men  on  the  bases,  because  then  he  has  to  cut  down 
his  motion  or  they  will  run  wild  on  him.  As  soon 
as  a  runner  gets  on  the  bag  with  Sallee  pitching, 
he  tries  to  steal  to  make  "Slim"  reduce  that  long 


90  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

winding  motion  which  is  his  greatest  asset.  But 
Sallee  won  several  games  from  the  Giants  last 
season  because  we  could  not  get  enough  men  on 
the  bases  to  beat  him.  He  only  gave  us  four  or 
five  hits  per  contest. 

For  a  long  time,  "Josh"  Devore,  the  Giants' 
left-fielder,  was  "plate  shy"  with  left-handers— 
that  is,  he  stepped  away — and  all  the  pitchers  in 
the  League  soon  learned  of  this  and  started  shoot- 
ing the  first  ball,  a  fast  one,  at  his  head  to  increase 
liis  natural  timidity.  Sallee,  in  particular,  had 
him  scared. 

"Stand  up  there,"  said  McGraw  to  "Josh" 
one  day  when  Sallee  was  pitching,  "and  let  him 
hit  you.  He  hasn't  speed  enough  to  hurt  you." 

"Josh"  did,  got  hit,  and  found  out  that  what 
McGraw  said  was  true.  It  cured  him  of  being 
afraid  of  Sallee. 

As  getting  men  on  the  bases  decreases  Sallee's 
effectiveness,  even  if  he  is  a  left-hander,  so  it 
increases  the  efficiency  of  "Lefty"  Leifield  of 
Pittsburg.  The  Giants  never  regard  Sallee  as  a 
left-hander  with  men  on  the  bases.  Most  south- 
paws can  keep  a  runner  close  to  the  bag  because 
they  are  facing  first  base  when  in  a  position  to 


Pitchers  and  Their  Peculiarities      91 

pitch,  but  Sallee  cannot.  On  the  other  hand, 
Leifield  uses  almost  exactly  the  same  motion  to 
throw  to  first  base  as  to  pitch  to  the  batter. 
These  two  are  so  nearly  alike  that  he  can  change  his 
mind  after  he  starts  and  throw  to  the  other  place. 

He  keeps  men  hugging  the  bag,  and  it  is  next  to 
impossible  to  steal  bases  on  him.  H  he  gets  his 
arm  so  far  forward  in  pitching  to  the  batter  that 
he  cannot  throw  to  the  base,  he  can  see  a  man 
start  and  pitch  out  so  the  catcher  has  a  fine  chance 
to  get  the  runner  at  second.  If  the  signal  is  for  a 
curved  ball,  he  can  make  it  a  high  curve,  and  the 
catcher  is  in  position  to  throw.  Leifield  has  been 
working  this  combination  pitch  either  to  first 
base  or  the  plate  for  years,  and  the  motion  for 
each  is  so  similar  that  even  the  umpires  cannot 
detect  it  and  never  call  a  balk  on  him. 

A  busher  broke  into  the  League  with  the  Giants 
one  fall  and  was  batting  against  Pittsburg.  There 
was  a  man  on  first  base  and  Leifield  started  to 
pitch  to  the  plate,  saw  by  a  quick  glance  that 
the  runner  was  taking  too  large  a  lead,  and  threw 
to  first.  The  youngster  swung  at  the  ball  and 
started  to  run  it  out.  Every  one  laughed. 

"What  were  you  trying  to  do?"  asked  McGraw. 


92  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

"I  hit  the  ball,"  protested  the  bush  leaguer. 
That  is  how  perfect  Leifield's  motion  is  with  men 
on  the  bases.  But  most  of  his  effectiveness  resides 
in  that  crafty  motion. 

Many  New  York  fans  will  remember  "  Dummy" 
Taylor,  the  deaf  and  dumb  pitcher  of  the  Giants. 
He  won  ball  games  for  the  last  two  years  he  was 
with  the  club  on  his  peculiar,  whirling  motion, 
but  as  soon  as  men  got  on  the  bases  and  he  had 
to  cut  it  down,  McGraw  would  take  him  out. 
That  swing  and  his  irresistible  good  nature  are 
still  winning  games  in  the  International  League, 
which  used  to  be  the  Eastern. 

So  if  a  pitcher  expects  to  be  a  successful  Big 
Leaguer,  he  must  guard  against  eccentricities 
of  temperament  and  mechanical  motion.  As  I 
have  said,  Drucke  of  the  Giants  for  a  long  time  had 
a  little  movement  with  his  foot  which  indicated 
to  the  runner  when  he  was  going  to  pitch,  and  they 
stole  bases  wildly  on  him.  But  McGraw  soon 
discovered  that  something  was  wrong  and  corrected 
it.  The  armor  of  a  Big  Leaguer  must  be  impene- 
trable, for  there  are  seven  clubs  always  looking 
for  flaws  in  the  manufacture,  and  "every  little 
movement  has  a  meaning  of  its  own." 


Playing  the  Game  from  the  Bench 

Behind  Every  Big  League  Ball  Game  there  Is  a 
Master  Mind  which  Directs  the  Moves  of  the 
Players — How  McGraw  Won  Two  Pennants  for 
the  Giants  from  the  "  Bench "  and  Lost  One 
by  Giving  the  Players  Too  Much  Liberty — The 
Methods  of  "Connie"  Mack  and  Other  Great 
Leaders 

HPHE  bench!  To  many  fans  who  see  a  hundred 
*  Big  League  ball  games  each  season,  this  is  a 
long,  hooded  structure  from  which  the  next 
batter  emerges  and  where  the  players  sit  while 
their  club  is  at  bat.  It  is  also  the  resort  of  the 
substitutes,  manager,  mascot  and  water  cooler. 

But  to  the  ball  player  it  is  the  headquarters. 

It  is  the  place  from  which  the  orders  come,  and 

it  is  here  that  the  battle  is  planned  and  from  here 

the  moves  are  executed.     The  manager  sits  here 

93 


94  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

and  pulls  the  wires,  and  his  players  obey  him  as 
if  they  were  manikins. 

"The  batteries  for  to-day's  game,"  says  the 
umpire,  "will  be  Sallee  and  Bresnahan  for  St. 
Louis;  Wiltse  and  Meyers  for  New  York." 

"Bunt,"  says  McGraw  as  his  players  scatter 
to  take  their  positions  on  the  field.  He  repeats 
the  order  when  they  come  to  the  bat  for  the  first 
inning,  because  he  knows  that  Sallee  has  two 
weaknesses,  one  being  that  he  cannot  field  bunts 
and  the  other  that  a  great  deal  of  activity  in  the 
box  tires  him  out  so  that  he  weakens.  A  bunting 
game  hits  at  both  these  flaws.  As  soon  as  Bres- 
nahan observes  the  plan  of  battle,  he  arranges 
his  players  to  meet  the  attack;  draws  in  his  third 
baseman,  shifts  the  shortstop  more  down  the 
line  toward  third  base,  and  is  on  the  alert  himself 
to  gather  in  slow  rollers  just  in  front  of  the  plate. 
The  idea  is  to  give  Sallee  the  minimum  opportunity 
to  get  at  the  ball  and  reduce  his  fielding  responsi- 
bilities to  nothing  or  less.  There  is  one  thing 
about  Sallee's  style  known  to  every  Big  League 
manager.  He  is  not  half  as  effective  with  men 
on  the  bases,  for  he  depends  largely  on  his  deceptive 
motion  to  fool  the  batters,  and  when  he  has  to 


Playing  the  Game  from  the  Bench     95 

cut  this  down  because  runners  are  on  the  bases, 
his  pitching  ability  evaporates. 

After  the  old  Polo  Grounds  had  been  burned 
down  in  the  spring  of  1911,  we  were  playing  St. 
Louis  at  American  League  Park  one  Saturday 
afternoon,  and  the  final  returns  of  the  game  were 
about  1 9  to  5  in  our  favor,  as  near  as  I  can  remember. 
We  made  thirteen  runs  in  the  first  inning.  Many 
spectators  went  away  from  the  park  talking 
about  a  slaughter  and  a  runaway  score  and  so  on. 
That  game  was  won  in  the  very  first  inning 
when  Sallee  went  into  the  box  to  pitch,  and  Mc- 
Graw  had  murmured  that  mystic  word  "Bunt!" 

The  first  batters  bunted,  bunted,  bunted  in 
monotonous  succession.  Sallee  not  yet  in  very 
good  physical  condition  because  it  was  early  in 
the  season,  was  stood  upon  his  head  by  this  form 
of  attack.  Bresnahan  redraped  his  infield  to 
try  to  stop  this  onslaught,  and  then  McGraw 
switched. 

"Hit  it,"  he  directed  the  next  batter. 

A  line  drive  whistled  past  Mowrey's  ears, 
the  man  who  plays  third  base  on  the  Cardinals. 
He  was  coming  in  to  get  a  bunt.  Another  followed. 
The  break  had  come.  Bresnahan  removed  Sallee 


96  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

and  put  another  pitcher  into  the  box,  but  once  a 
ball  club  starts  to  hit  the  ball,  it  is  like  a  skidding 
automobile.  It  can't  be  stopped.  The  Giants 
kept  on  and  piled  up  a  ridiculous  and  laughable 
score,  which  McGraw  had  made  possible  in  the 
first  inning  by  directing  his  men  to  bunt. 

The  Giants  won  the  championship  of  the 
National  League  in  1904  and  the  New  York  fans 
gave  the  team  credit  for  the  victory.  It  was  a 
club  of  young  players,  and  McGraw  realized  this 
fact  when  he  started  his  campaign.  Every  play 
that  season  was  made  from  the  bench,  made  by 
John  McGraw  through  his  agents,  his  manikins, 
who  moved  according  to  the  wires  which  he  pulled. 
And  by  the  end  of  the  summer  his  hands  were 
badly  calloused  from  pulling  wires,  but  the  Giants 
had  the  pennant. 

When  the  batter  was  at  the  plate  in  a  critical 
stage,  he  would  stall  and  look  to  the  "bench" 
for  orders  to  discover  whether  to  hit  the  ball  out 
or  lay  it  down,  whether  to  try  the  hit  and  run, 
or  wait  for  the  base  runner  to  attempt  to  steal. 
By  stalling,  I  mean  that  he  would  tie  his  shoe  or 
fix  his  belt,  or  find  any  little  excuse  to  delay  the 
game  so  that  he  could  get  a  flash  at  the  "bench" 


Playing  the  Game  from  the  Bench     97 

for  orders.  A  shoe  lace  has  played  an  important 
role  in  many  a  Big  League  battle,  as  I  will  try  to 
show  later  on  in  this  story.  If  it  ever  became  the 
custom  to  wear  button  shoes,  the  game  would 
have  to  be  revised. 

As  the  batter  looked  toward  the  bench,  McGraw 
might  reach  for  his  handkerchief  to  blow  his 
nose,  and  the  batter  knew  it  was  up  to  him  to 
kit  the  ball  out.  Some  days  in  that  season  of 
1904  I  saw  McGraw  blow  his  nose  during  a  game 
until  it  was  red  and  sore  on  the  end,  and  then 
another  day,  when  he  had  a  cold  in  his  head, 
he  had  to  do  without  his  handkerchief  because  he 
wanted  to  play  a  bunting  game.  Until  his  cold 
got  better,  he  had  to  switch  to  another  system 
of  signs. 

During  that  season,  each  coacher  would  keep 
his  eye  on  the  bench  for  orders.  Around  McGraw 
revolved  the  game  of  the  Giants.  He  was  the 
game.  And  most  of  that  summer  he  spent  upon 
the  bench,  because  from  there  he  could  get  the 
best  look  at  the  diamond,  and  his  observations 
were  not  confined  to  one  place  or  to  one  base 
runner.  He  was  able  to  discover  whether  an 
out-fielder  was  playing  too  close  for  a  batter,  or  too 


98  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

far  out,  and  rearrange  the  men.  He  could  perhaps 
catch  a  sign  from  the  opposing  catcher  and  pass 
it  along  to  the  batter.  And  he  won  the  pennant 
from  the  bench.  He  was  seldom  seen  on  the 
coaching  lines  that  year. 

Many  fans  wonder  why,  when  the  Giants 
get  behind  in  a  game,  McGraw  takes  to  the  bench, 
after  having  been  out  on  the  coaching  lines 
inning  after  inning  while  the  club  was  holding 
its  own  or  winning.  Time  and  again  I  have 
heard  him  criticised  for  this  by  spectators  and 
even  by  players  on  other  clubs. 

"  McGraw  is  'yellow,'  "  players  have  said  to  me. 
"Just  as  soon  as  his  club  gets  behind,  he  runs 
for  cover." 

The  crime  of  being  "yellow"  is  the  worst  in 
the  Big  Leagues.  It  means  that  a  man  is  afraid, 
that  he  lacks  the  nerve  to  face  the  music.  But 
McGraw  and  "yellow"  are  as  far  apart  as  the 
poles,  or  Alpha  and  Omega,  or  Fifth  Avenue  and 
the  Bowery,  or  any  two  widely  separated  and 
distant  things.  I  have  seen  McGraw  go  on  to 
ball  fields  where  he  is  as  welcome  as  a  man  with 
the  black  smallpox  and  face  the  crowd  alone 
that,  in  the  heat  of  its  excitement,  would  like  to 


Playing  the  Game  from  the  Bench     99 

tear  him  apart.  I  have  seen  him  take  all  sorts 
of  personal  chances.  He  does  n't  know  what  fear 
is,  and  in  his  bright  lexicon  of  baseball  there  is 
no  such  word  as  "fear."  His  success  is  partly  due 
to  his  indomitable  courage. 

There  is  a  real  reason  for  his  going  to  the  bench 
when  the  team  gets  behind.  It  is  because  this 
increases  the  club's  chances  of  winning.  From 
the  bench  he  can  see  the  whole  field,  can  note 
where  his  fielders  are  playing,  can  get  a  peek  at 
the  other  bench,  and  perhaps  pick  up  a  tip  as  to 
what  to  expect.  He  can  watch  his  own  pitcher, 
or  observe  whether  the  opposing  twirler  drops  his 
throwing  arm  as  if  weary.  He  is  at  the  helm  when 
"on  the  bench,"  and,  noting  any  flaw  in  the 
opposition,  he  is  in  a  position  to  take  advantage 
of  it  at  a  moment's  notice,  or,  catching  some  sign 
of  faltering  among  his  own  men,  he  is  imme- 
diately there  to  strengthen  the  weakness.  Many  a 
game  he  has  pulled  out  of  the  fire  by  going  back 
to  the  bench  and  watching.  So  the  idea  obtained 
by  many  spectators  that  he  is  quitting  is  the 
wrong  one.  He  is  only  fighting  harder. 

The  Giants  were  playing  Pittsburg  one  day  in 
the  season  of  1909,  and  Clarke  and  McGraw 


ioo  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

had  been  having  a  great  guessing  match.  It  was 
one  of  those  give-and-take  games  with  plenty  of 
batting,  with  one  club  forging  ahead  and  then  the 
other.  Clarke  had  saved  the  game  for  Pittsburg 
in  the  sixth  inning  by  a  shoe-string.  Leifield  had 
been  pitching  up  to  this  point,  and  he  was  n't 
there  or  even  in  the  neighborhood.  But  still 
the  Pirates  were  leading  by  two  runs,  having 
previously  knocked  Ames  out  of  the  box.  Doyle 
and  McCormick  made  hits  with  no  one  out  in 
our  half  of  the  sixth. 

It  looked  like  the  "break,"  and  McGraw  was 
urging  his  players  on  to  even  up  the  score, 
when  Clarke  suddenly  took  off  his  sun  glasses 
in  left  field  and  stooped  down  to  tie  his  shoe. 
When  he  removes  his  sun-glasses  that  is  a  sign 
for  a  pitcher  to  warm  up  in  a  hurry,  and  "Babe" 
Adams  sprinted  to  the  outfield  with  a  catcher 
and  began  to  heat  up.  Clarke  took  all  of  five 
minutes  to  tie  that  shoe,  McGraw  violently  pro- 
testing against  the  delay  in  the  meantime.  Fred 
Clarke  has  been  known  to  wear  out  a  pair  of  shoe 
laces  in  one  game  tying  and  untying  them. 
After  the  shoe  was  fixed  up,  he  jogged  slowly 
to  the  bench  and  took  Leifield  out  of  the  box. 


Playing  the  Game  from  the  Bench   101 

In  the  interim,  Adams  had  had  an  opportunity 
to  warm  up,  and  Clarke  raised  his  arm  and  or- 
dered him  into  the  box.  He  fanned  the  next 
two  men,  and  the  last  batter  hit  an  easy  roller 
to  Wagner.  We  were  still  two  runs  to  the  bad 
after  that  promising  start  in  the  sixth,  and 
Clarke,  for  the  time  being,  had  saved  the  game 
by  a  shoe  string. 

McGraw,  who  had  been  on  the  coaching  lines 
up  to  this  point,  retired  to  the  bench  after  that, 
and  I  heard  one  of  those  wise  spectators,  sitting 
just  behind  our  coop,  who  could  tell  Mr.  Rocke- 
feller how  to  run  his  business  but  who  spends  his 
life  working  as  a  clerk  at  $18  a  week,  remark  to 
a  friend: 

"It 's  all  off  now.  McGraw  has  laid  down." 
Watching  the  game  through  eyes  half  shut 
and  drawn  to  a  focus,  McGraw  waited.  In  the 
seventh  inning  Clarke  came  to  bat  with  two  men 
on  the  bases.  A  hit  would  have  won  the  game 
beyond  any  doubt.  In  a  flash  McGraw  was  on 
his  feet  and  ran  out  to  Meyers,  catching.  He 
stopped  the  game,  and,  with  a  wave  of  his  arm, 
drew  Harry  McCormick,  playing  left  field,  in 
close  to  third  base.  The  game  went  on,  and 


102  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

Wiltse  twisted  a  slow  curve  over  the  outside 
corner  of  the  plate  to  Clarke,  a  left-handed  hitter. 
He  timed  his  swing  and  sent  a  low  hit  singing 
over  third  base.  McCormick  dashed  in  and 
caught  the  ball  off  his  shoe  tops.  That  made 
three  outs.  McGraw  had  saved  our  chances  of 
victory  right  there,  for  had  McCormick  been 
playing  where  he  originally  intended  before  Mc- 
Graw stopped  the  contest,  the  ball  would  have 
landed  in  unguarded  territory  and  two  runs 
would  have  been  scored. 

But  McGraw  had  yet  the  game  to  win.  As 
his  team  came  to  the  bat  for  the  seventh,  he  said : 

"This  fellow  Adams  is  a  youngster  and  liable 
to  be  nervous  and  wild.  Wait." 

The  batters  waited  with  the  patience  of  Job. 
Each  man  let  the  first  two  balls  pass  him  and  made 
Adams  pitch  himself  to  the  limit  to  every  batter. 
It  got  on  Adams's  nerves.  In  the  ninth  he  passed 
a  couple  of  men,  and  a  hit  tied  the  score.  Clarke 
left  him  in  the  box,  for  he  was  short  of  pitchers. 
On  the  game  went  to  ten,  eleven,  twelve,  thirteen, 
innings.  The  score  was  still  tied  and  Wiltse 
was  pitching  like  a  machine.  McGraw  was  on 
the  bench,  leaving  the  coaching  to  his  lieutenants. 


Playing  the  Game  from  the  Bench   103 

The  club  was  still  waiting  for  the  youngster  to 
weaken.  At  last,  in  the  thirteenth,  after  one  man 
had  been  put  out,  the  eye  of  McGraw  saw  Adams 
drop  his  pitching  arm  to  his  side  as  if  tired.  It 
was  only  a  minute  motion.  None  of  the  spectators 
saw  it,  none  of  the  players. 

"Now  hit  it,  boys,"  came  the  order  from  the 
"bench."  The  style  was  switched,  and  the  game 
won  when  three  hits  were  rattled  out.  McGraw 
alone  observed  that  sign  of  weakening  and  took 
advantage  of  it  at  the  opportune  time.  He  won 
the  game  from  the  bench.  That  is  what  makes 
him  a  great  manager,  observing  the  little  things. 
Anyone  can  see  the  big  ones.  If  he  had  been  on 
the  coaching  lines,  he  would  not  have  had  as  good 
an  opportunity  to  study  the  young  pitcher,  for 
he  would  have  had  to  devote  his  attention  to  the 
base  runners.  He  might  have  missed  this  sign 
of  wilting. 

McGraw  is  always  studying  a  pitcher,  particu- 
larly a  new  one  in  the  League.  The  St.  Louis 
club  had  a  young  pitcher  last  fall,  named  Lauder- 
milk,  who  was  being  tried  out.  He  had  a  brother 
on  the  team.  In  his  first  game  against  the  Giants, 
played  in  St.  Louis,  he  held  us  to  a  few  scattered 


104  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

hits  and  gave  us  a  terrific  battle,  only  losing  the 
game  because  one  of  his  fielders  made  a  costly 
error  behind  him.  The  papers  of  St.  Louis  boosted 
him  as  another  "Rube"  Waddell.  He  was  left- 
handed.  McGraw  laughed. 

"All  I  want,"  he  said,  "is  another  crack  at  that 
Buttermilk  after  what  I  learned  about  him  this 
afternoon.  He  can't  control  his  curve,  and  all 
you  fellows  have  got  to  do  is  wait  for  his  fast  one. 
He  gave  you  that  fight  to-day  because  he  had  you 
all  swinging  at  bad  curve  balls." 

Laudermilk  made  another  appearance  against 
the  Giants  later,  and  he  made  his  disappearance 
in  that  game  in  the  fourth  inning,  when  only  one 
was  out  to  be  exact,  after  we  had  scored  five  runs 
off  him  by  waiting  for  his  fast  one,  according  to 
McGraw's  orders. 

After  winning  the  pennant  in  1904  by  sitting 
on  the  bench,  keeping  away  from  the  coaching 
lines,  and  making  every  play  himself,  McGraw 
decided  that  his  men  were  older  and  knew  the  game 
and  that  he  would  give  them  more  rein  in  1905. 
He  appeared  oftener  on  the  coaching  lines  and 
attended  more  to  the  base  runners  than  to  the 
game  an  A  whole.  But  in  the  crises  he  was  the 


Playing  the  Game  from  the  Bench   105 

man  who  decided  what  was  to  be  done.  The 
club  won  the  pennant  that  year  and  the  world's 
championship.  The  players  got  very  chesty 
immediately  thereafter,  and  the  buttons  on  their 
vests  had  to  be  shifted  back  to  make  room  for  the 
new  measure.  They  knew  the  game  and  had  won 
two  pennants,  besides  a  championship  of  the  world. 

So  in  the  season  of  1906  McGraw  started  with 
a  team  of  veterans,  and  it  was  predicted  that  he 
would  repeat.  But  these  men,  who  knew  the  game, 
were  making  decisions  for  themselves  because 
McGraw  was  giving  them  more  liberty.  The 
runners  went  wild  on  the  bases  and  tried  things 
at  the  wrong  stages.  They  lost  game  after  game. 
At  last,  after  a  particularly  disastrous  defeat  one 
day,  McGraw  called  his  men  together  in  the  dub- 
house  and  addressed  them  in  this  wise: 

"Because  you  fellows  have  won  two  champion- 
ships and  beaten  the  Athletics  is  no  reason  for  you 
all  to  believe  that  you  are  fit  to  write  a  book  on 
how  to  play  baseball.  You  are  just  running  wild 
on  the  bases.  You  might  as  well  not  have  a 
manager.  Now  don't  any  one  try  to  pull  anything 
without  orders.  We  will  begin  all  over  again." 

But  it  is  hard  to  teach  old  ball-players  new  tricks, 


io6  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

and  several  fines  had  to  be  imposed  before  the 
orders  were  obeyed.  The  club  did  not  win  the 
championship  that  year. 

When  McGraw  won  the  pennant  in  1911,  he 
did  it  with  a  club  of  youngsters,  many  of  them 
playing  through  their  first  whole  season  as  regu- 
lars in  the  company.  There  were  Snodgrass  and 
Devore  and  Fletcher  and  Marquard.  Every 
time  a  batter  went  to  the  plate,  he  had  definite 
orders  from  the  "bench"  as  to  what  he  was  to 
attempt — whether  to  take  two,  or  lay  the  ball 
down,  or  swing,  or  work  the  hit  and  run.  Each 
time  that  a  man  shot  out  from  first  base  like  a 
catapulted  figure  and  slid  into  second,  he  had 
been  ordered  by  McGraw  to  try  to  steal.  If 
players  protested  against  his  judgment,  his 
invariable  answer  was: 

"Do  what  I  tell  you,  and  I  '11  take  the  blame 
for  mistakes." 

One  of  McGraw's  laments  is,  "I  wish  I  could 
be  in  three  places  at  once." 

I  never  heard  him  say  it  with  such  a  ring  to 
the  words  as  after  Snodgrass  was  touched  out  in  the 
third  game  of  the  1911  world's  series,  in  the  tenth 
inning,  when  his  life  might  have  meant  victory 


Playing  the  Game  from  the  Bench    107 

in  that  game  anyway.  I  have  frequently  referred 
to  the  incident  in  these  stories,  so  most  of  my 
readers  are  familiar  with  the  situation.  Snodgrass 
was  put  out  trying  to  get  to  third  base  on  a  short 
passed  ball,  after  he  had  started  back  for  second 
to  recover  some  of  the  ground  he  had  taken  in 
too  long  a  lead  before  the  ball  got  to  Lapp. 
McGraw's  face  took  on  an  expression  of  agony 
as  if  he  were  watching  his  dearest  friend  die. 

"If  I  could  only  have  been  there!"  he  said. 
"I  wish  I  could  be  in  three  places  at  once." 

He  meant  the  bench,  the  first  base  coaching 
line,  and  the  third  base  line.  At  this  particular 
time  he  was  giving  the  batters  orders  from  the 
bench.  It  was  one  of  those  incidents  which  come 
up  in  a  ball  game  and  have  to  be  decided  in  the 
drawing  of  a  breath,  so  that  a  manager  cannot 
give  orders  unless  he  is  right  on  the  spot. 

It  is  my  opinion  that  it  is  a  big  advantage  to 
a  team  to  have  the  manager  on  the  bench  rather 
than  in  the  game.  Frank  Chance  of  the  Chicago 
Cubs  is  a  great  leader,  but  I  think  he  would  be 
a  greater  one  if  he  could  find  one  of  his  mechanical 
ability  to  play  first  base,  and  he  could  sit  on  the 
bench  as  the  director  general.  He  is  occupied 


io8  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

with  the  duties  of  his  position  and  often  little 
things  get  by  him.  I  believe  that  we  beat  the 
Cubs  in  two  games  in  1909  because  Chance  was 
playing  first  base  instead  of  directing  the  game 
from  the  bench. 

In  the  first  contest  Ames  was  pitching  and  Schlei 
catching.  Now,  Schlei  was  no  three  hundred 
hitter,  but  he  was  a  good  man  in  a  pinch  and 
looked  like  Wagner  when  compared  to  Ames 
as  a  swatter.  Schlei  came  up  to  the  bat  with 
men  on  second  and  third  bases,  two  out,  and  a 
chance  to  win  or  put  us  ahead  if  he  could  make  a 
hit.  The  first  time  it  happened,  McGraw  un- 
folded his  arms  and  relaxed,  which  is  a  sign  that 
he  is  conceding  something  for  the  time  being. 

"No  use,"  he  said.  "All  those  runners  are 
going  to  waste.  We'll  have  to  make  another 
try  in  the  next  inning.  They  will  surely  pass 
Schlei  to  take  a  chance  on  Ames." 

Then  Overall,  who  was  pitching,  whistled  a 
strike  over  the  plate  and  McGraw's  body  tightened 
and  the  old  lines  around  the  mouth  appeared. 
Here  was  a  chance  yet. 

"They  're  going  to  let  him  hit,"  he  cried  joyfully. 

Schlei  made  a  base  hit  on  the  next  pitch  and 


Playing  the  Game  from  the  Bench    109 

scored  both  men.  Almost  the  same  thing  happened 
later  on  in  the  season  with  men  on  second  and 
third  bases,  and  Raymond,  another  feather- 
weight hitter,  pitching.  It  struck  me  as  being  an 
oversight  on  the  part  of  Chance  on  both  occasions, 
probably  because  he  was  so  busy  with  his  own 
position  and  watching  the  players  on  the  field 
that  he  did  n't  notice  the  pitcher  was  the  next 
batter.  He  let  Schlei  hit  each  time,  which  proba- 
bly cost  him  two  games. 

The  Giants  were  playing  St.  Louis  at  the  Polo 
Grounds  in  1910,  and  I  was  pitching  against 
Harmon.  I  held  the  Cardinals  to  one  hit  up 
to  the  ninth  inning,  and  we  had  the  game  won 
by  the  score  of  I  to  o,  when  their  first  batter  in 
the  ninth  walked.  Then,  after  two  had  been  put 
out,  another  scratched  a  hit.  It  looked  as  if  we 
still  had  the  game  won,  since  only  one  man  was 
left  to  be  put  out  and  the  runners  were  on  first 
and  second  bases.  Mowrey,  the  red-headed  third 
baseman,  came  to  the  bat. 

"Murray's  playing  too  near  centre  field  for 
this  fellow,"  remarked  McGraw  to  some  of  the 
players  on  the  bench. 

Hardly  had  he  said  it  when  Mowrey  shoved 


no  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

a  long  fly  to  right  field,  which  soared  away  toward 
the  stand.  Murray  started  to  run  with  the  ball. 
For  a  minute  it  looked  as  if  he  were  going  to  get 
there,  and  then  it  just  tipped  his  outstretched 
hands  as  it  fell  to  the  ground.  It  amounted  to  a 
three-base  hit  and  won  the  game  for  the  Cardinals 
by  the  score  of  2  to  I. 

"I  knew  it,"  said  McGraw,  one  of  whose  many 
rdles  is  as  a  prophet  of  evil.  "Did  n't  I  call  the 
turn?  I  ought  to  have  gone  out  there  and 
stopped  the  game  and  moved  Murray  over.  I 
blame  myself  for  that  hit." 

That  was  a  game  in  which  the  St.  Louis  batters 
made  three  hits  and  won  it.  It  is  n't  the  number 
of  hits,  so  much  as  when  they  come,  that  wins 
ball  games. 

Frequently,  McGraw  will  stop  a  game — bring 
it  to  a  dead  standstill — by  walking  out  from  the 
bench  as  the  pitcher  is  about  to  wind  up. 

"Stop  it  a  minute,  Meyers,"  he  will  shout. 
"Pull  Snodgrass  in  a  little  bit  for  this  fellow." 

The  man  interested  in  statistics  would  be 
surprised  at  how  many  times  little  moves  of  this 
sort  have  saved  games.  But  for  the  McGraw 
system  to  be  effective,  he  must  have  working  for 


Playing  the  Game  from  the  Bench   in 

him  a  set  of  players  who  are  taking  the  old  look 
around  for  orders  all  the  time.  He  has  a  way  of 
inducing  the  men  to  keep  their  heads  up  which 
has  worked  very  well.  If  a  player  has  been  slow 
or  has  not  taken  all  the  distance  McGraw  believes 
is  possible  on  a  hit,  he  often  finds  $10  less  in  his 
pay  envelope  at  the  end  of  the  month.  And  the 
conversation  on  the  bench  at  times,  when  men 
have  made  errors  of  omission,  would  not  fit  into 
any  Sunday-school  room. 

During  a  game  for  the  most  part,  McGraw  is 
silent,  concentrating  his  attention  on  the  game, 
and  the  players  talk  in  low  tones,  as  if  in  church, 
discussing  the  progress  of  the  contest.  But  let 
a  player  make  a  bad  break,  and  McGraw  delivers 
a  talk  to  him  that  would  have  to  be  written  on 
asbestos  paper. 

Arthur  Wilson  was  coaching  at  third  base  in 
one  of  the  games  in  a  series  played  in  Philadelphia 
the  first  part  of  September,  1911.  There  were 
barely  enough  pitchers  to  go  around  at  the  time, 
and  McGraw  was  very  careful  to  take  advantage 
of  every  little  point,  so  that  nothing  would  be 
wasted.  He  feels  that  if  a  game  is  lost  because 
the  other  side  is  better,  there  is  some  excuse, 


1 12  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

but  if  it  goes  because  some  one's  head  should  be 
used  for  furniture  instead  of  thinking  baseball, 
it  is  like  losing  money  that  might  have  been  spent. 
Fletcher  was  on  second  base  when  Meyers  came 
to  bat.  The  Indian  pushed  the  ball  to  right  fieltf 
along  the  line.  Fletcher  came  steaming  around 
third  base  and  could  have  rolled  home  safely, 
but  Wilson,  misjudging  the  hit,  rushed  out,  tackled 
him,  and  threw  him  back  on  the  bag.  Even  the 
plodding  Meyers  reached  second  on  the  hit  and 
McGraw  was  boiling.  He  promptly  sent  a  coacher 
out  to  relieve  Wilson,  and  his  oratory  to  the  young 
catcher  would  have  made  a  Billingsgate  fishwife 
sore.  We  eventually  won  the  game,  but  at  this 
time  there  was  only  a  difference  of  something  like 
one,  and  it  would  have  been  a  big  relief  to  have  seen 
that  run  which  Wilson  interrupted  across  the  plate. 
McGraw  is  always  on  Devore's  hip  because 
he  often  feels  that  this  brilliant  young  player 
does  not  get  as  much  out  of  his  natural  ability 
as  he  might.  He  is  frequently  listless,  and,  often, 
after  a  good  hit,  he  will  feel  satisfied  with  himself 
and  fan  out  a  couple  of  times.  So  McGraw  does 
all  that  he  can  to  discourage  this  self-satisfaction. 
"Josh"  is  a  great  man  in  a  pinch,  for  he  hangs  on 


Playing  the  Game  from  the  Bench    113 

like  a  bulldog,  and  instead  of  getting  nervous, 
works  the  harder.  If  the  reader  will  consult 
past  history,  he  will  note  that  it  was  a  pinch 
hit  by  Devore  which  won  the  first  world-series 
game,  and  one  of  his  wallops,  combined  with  a 
timely  bingle  by  Crandall,  was  largely  instrumental 
in  bringing  the  second  victory  to  the  Giants. 
McGraw  has  made  Devore  the  ball-player  that  he 
is  by  skilful  handling. 

The  Giants  were  having  a  nip  and  tuck  game 
with  the  Cubs  in  the  early  part  of  last  summer, 
when  Devore  came  to  the  bat  in  one  of  those 
pinches  and  shot  a  three  bagger  over  third  base 
which  won  the  game.  As  he  slid  into  third  and 
picked  himself  up,  feeling  like  more  or  less  of  a  hero 
because  the  crowd  was  announcing  this  fact  to 
him  by  prolonged  cheers,  McGraw  said : 

"Gee,  you're  a  lucky  guy.  I  wish  I  had  your 
luck.  You  were  shot  full  of  horseshoes  to  get 
that  one.  When  I  saw  you  shut  your  eyes, 
I  never  thought  you  would  hit  it." 

This  was  like  pricking  a  bubble,  and  "Josh's" 
chest  returned  to  its  normal  measure. 

Marquard  is  another  man  whom  McGraw 
constantly  subjects  to  a  conversational  massage. 


ii4  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

Devore  and  Marquard  room  together  on  the  road, 
and  they  got  to  talking  about  their  suite  at  the 
hotel  during  a  close  game  in  Philadelphia  one  day. 
It  annoys  McGraw  to  hear  his  men  discussing 
off-stage  subjects  during  a  critical  contest,  because 
it  not  only  distracts  their  attention,  but  his  and 
that  of  the  other  players. 

"Ain't  that  room  of  ours  a  dandy,  Rube?" 
asked  Devore. 

"Best  in  the  lot,"  replied  Marquard. 

"It's  got  five  windows  and  swell  furniture," 
said  Devore. 

"Solid  mahogany,"  said  McGraw,  who  appar- 
ently had  been  paying  no  attention  to  the  con- 
versation. "That  is,  judging  by  some  of  the  plays 
I  have  seen  you  two  pull.  Now  can  the  con- 
versation." 

Devore  went  down  into  Cuba  with  the  Giants, 
carrying  quite  a  bank  roll  from  the  world's  series, 
and  the  idea  that  he  was  on  a  picnic.  He  started 
a  personally  conducted  tour  of  Havana  on  his 
first  night  there  and  we  lost  the  game  the  next 
day,  "Josh"  overlooking  several  swell  opportuni- 
ties to  make  hits  in  pinches.  In  fact  he  did  n't 
even  get  a  foul. 


Playing  the  Game  from  the  Bench   115 

"You  are  fined  $25,"  said  McGraw  to  him  after 
the  game. 

"You  can't  fine  me,"  said  Devore.  "I'm  not 
under  contract." 

"Then  you  take  the  next  boat  home,"  replied 
the  manager.  "I  didn't  come  down  here  to  let 
a  lot  of  coffee-colored  Cubans  show  me  up.  You  Ve 
got  to  either  play  ball  or  go  home." 

Devore  made  four  hits  the  next  day. 

In  giving  his  signs  from  the  bench  to  the  players, 
McGraw  depends  on  a  gesture  or  catch  word. 
When  "Dummy"  Taylor,  the  deaf  and  dumb 
twirler,  was  with  the  club,  all  the  players  learned 
the  deaf  and  dumb  language.  This  medium  was 
used  for  signing  fora  time,  until  smart  ball  players, 
like  Evers  and  Leach,  took  up  the  study  of  it  and 
became  so  proficient  they  could  converse  fluently 
on  their  fingers.  But  they  were  also  great 
"listeners,"  and  we  did  n't  discover  for  some  time 
that  this  was  how  they  were  getting  our  signs. 
Thereafter  we  only  used  the  language  for  social 
purposes. 

Evers  and  McGraw  got  into  a  conversation 
one,  day  in  the  deaf  and  dumb  language  at  long 
range  and  "Johnny"  Evers  threw  a  finger  out 


n6  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

of  joint  replying  to  McGraw  in  a  brilliant  flash 
of  repartee. 

Every  successful  manager  is  a  distinct  type. 
Each  plays  the  game  from  the  bench.  "Connie" 
Mack  gives  his  men  more  liberty  than  most. 
Chance  rules  for  the  most  part  with  an  iron  hand. 
Bresnahan  is  ever  spurring  his  men  on.  Chance 
changes  his  seat  on  the  bench,  and  there  is  a  double 
steal.  "Connie"  Mack  uncrosses  his  legs,  and 
the  hit  and  run  is  tried. 

Most  managers  transmit  their  signs  by  move- 
ments or  words.  Jennings  is  supposed  to  have 
hidden  in  his  jumble  of  jibes  some  catch  words. 

The  manager  on  the  bench  must  know  just 
when  to  change  pitchers.  He  has  to  decide  the 
exact  time  to  send  in  a  substitute  hitter,  when  to 
install  another  base  runner.  All  these  decisions 
must  be  made  in  the  "batting"  of  an  eye.  It 
takes  quick  and  accurate  judgment,  and  the  suc- 
cessful manager  must  be  right  usually.  That 's 
playing  the  game  from  the  bench. 


VI 

Coaching  Good  and  Bad 

Coaching  is  Divided  into  Three  Parts:  Offensive,  De- 
fensive, and  the  Use  of  Crowds  to  Rattle  Players  — 
Why  McGraw  Developed  Scientific  Coaching  —  The 
Important  Rdle  a  Coacher  Plays  in  the  Crisis  of  a 
Big  League  Ball  Game  when,  on  his  Orders, 
Hangs  Victory  or  Defeat. 


moments  occur  in  every  close 
ball  game,  when  coaching  may  win  or  lose  it. 
"That  was  n't  the  stage  for  you  to  try  to  score," 
yelled  John  McGraw,  the  manager  of  the  Giants, 
at  "Josh"  Devore,  as  the  New  York  left-fielder 
attempted  to  count  from  second  base  on  a  short 
hit  to  left  field,  with  no  one  out  and  the  team 
one  run  behind  in  a  game  with  the  Pirates  one  day 
in  1911,  when  every  contest  might  mean  the 
winning  or  losing  of  the  pennant. 

"First   time  in  my  life   I   was  ever   thrown 
117 


n8  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

out  trying  to  score  from  second  on  a  base  hit  to 
the  outfield,"  answered  Devore,  "and  besides 
the  coacher  sent  me  in." 

"I  don't  care,"  replied  McGraw,  "that  was  a 
two  out  play." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  one  of  the  younger  players 
on  the  team  was  coaching  at  third  base  at  the 
time  and  made  an  error  of  judgment  in  sending 
Devore  home,  of  which  an  older  head  would  not 
have  been  guilty.  And  the  Pirates  beat  us  by 
just  that  one  run  the  coacher  sacrificed.  The 
next  batter  came  through  with  an  outfield  fly 
which  would  have  scored  Devore  from  third  base 
easily. 

Probably  no  more  wily  general  ever  crouched 
on  the  coaching  line  at  third  base  than  John 
McGraw.  His  judgment  in  holding  runners  or 
urging  them  on  to  score  is  almost  uncanny. 
Governed  by  no  set  rules  himself,  he  has  formu- 
lated  a  list  of  regulations  for  his  players  which  might 
be  called  the  "McGraw  Coaching  Curriculum." 
He  has  favorite  expressions,  such  as  "there  are 
stages"  and  "that  was  a  two  out  play,"  which 
mean  certain  chances  are  to  be  taken  by  a  coacher 
at  one  point  in  a  contest,  while  to  attempt  such  a 


Coaching  Good  and  Bad          119 

play  under  other  circumstances  would  be  nothing 
short  of  foolhardy. 

With  the  development  of  baseball,  coaching 
has  advanced  until  it  is  now  an  exact  science. 
For  many  years  the  two  men  who  stood  at  first 
and  third  bases  were  stationed  there  merely 
to  bullyrag  and  abuse  the  pitchers,  often  using 
language  that  was  a  disgrace  to  a  ball  field. 
When  they  were  not  busy  with  this  part  of  their 
art,  they  handed  helpful  hints  to  the  runners  as 
to  where  the  ball  was  and  whether  the  second 
baseman  was  concealing  it  under  his  shirt  (a 
favorite  trick  of  the  old  days),  while  the  pitcher 
pretended  to  prepare  to  deliver  it.  But  as  rules 
were  made  which  strictly  forbade  the  use  of 
indecent  language  to  a  pitcher,  and  as  the  old 
school  of  clowns  passed,  coaching  developed  into 
a  science,  and  the  sentries  stationed  at  first  and 
third  bases  found  themselves  occupying  important 
jobs. 

For  some  time  McGraw  frowned  down  upon 
scientific  coaching,  until  its  value  was  forcibly 
brought  home  to  him  one  day  by  an  incident 
that  occurred  at  the  Polo  Grounds,  and  since 
then  he  has  developed  it  until  his  knowledge 


120  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

of  advising  base  runners  is  the  pinnacle  of  scien- 
tific coaching. 

A  few  years  ago,  the  Giants  were  having  a  nip 
and  tuck  struggle  one  day,  when  Harry  McCormick, 
then  the  left-fielder,  came  to  the  plate  and  knocked 
the  ball  to  the  old  centre-field  ropes.  He  sped 
around  the  bases,  and  when  he  reached  third, 
it  looked  as  if  he  could  roll  home  ahead  of  the 
ball.  "Cy"  Seymour  was  coaching  and  surprised 
everybody  by  rushing  out  and  tackling  McCormick, 
throwing  him  down  and  trying  to  force  him  back 
to  third  base.  But  big  McCormick  got  the  best 
of  the  struggle,  scrambled  to  his  feet,  and  finally 
scored  after  overcoming  the  obstacle  that  Seymour 
made.  That  run  won  the  game. 

"What  was  the  matter  with  you,  Cy?" 
asked  McGraw  as  Seymour  came  to  the  bench 
after  he  had  almost  lost  the  game  by  his  poor 
coaching. 

"The  sun  got  in  my  eyes,  and  I  couldn't  see 
the  ball,"  replied  Seymour. 

"You'd  better  wear  smoked  glasses  the  next 
time  you  go  out  to  coach,"  replied  the  manager. 
The  batter  was  hitting  the  ball  due  east,  and  the 
game  was  being  played  in  the  afternoon,  so  Sey- 


Coaching  Good  and  Bad         121 

mour  had  no  alibi.  From  the  moment ' '  Cy ' '  made 
that  mistake,  McGraw  realized  the  value  of 
scientific  coaching,  which  means  making  the  most 
of  every  hit  in  a  game. 

I  have  always  held  that  a  good  actor  with  a 
knowledge  of  baseball  would  make  a  good  coacher, 
because  it  is  the  acting  that  impresses  a  base 
runner,  not  the  talking.  More  often  than  not, 
the  conversation  of  a  coacher,  be  it  ever  so  brill- 
iant, is  not  audible  above  the  screeching  of  the 
crowd  at  critical  moments.  And  I  believe  that 
McGraw  is  a  great  actor,  at  least  of  the  baseball 
school. 

The  cheering  of  the  immense  crowds  which 
attend  ball  games,  if  it  can  be  organized,  is  a  potent 
factor  in  winning  or  losing  them.  McGraw  gets 
the  most  out  of  a  throng  by  his  clever  acting. 
Did  any  patron  of  the  Polo  Grounds  ever  see  him 
turn  to  the  stands  or  make  any  pretence  that  he 
was  paying  attention  to  the  spectators?  Does  he 
ever  play  to  the  gallery?  Yet  it  is  admitted  that 
he  can  do  more  with  a  crowd,  make  it  more  malle- 
able, than  any  other  man  in  baseball  to-day. 

The  attitude  of  the  spectators  makes  a  lot  of 
difference  to  a  ball  club.  A  lackadaisical,  half- 


122  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

interested  crowd  often  results  in  the  team  playing 
slovenly  ball,  while  a  lively  throng  can  inject 
ginger  into  the  men  and  put  the  whole  club 
on  its  toes.  McGraw  is  skilled  in  getting  the  most 
out  of  the  spectators  without  letting  them  know 
that  he  is  doing  it. 

Did  you  ever  watch  the  little  manager  crouching, 
immovable,  at  third  base  with  a  mitt  on  his  hand, 
when  the  New  York  club  goes  to  bat  in  the  seventh 
inning  two  runs  behind?  The  first  hitter  gets  a 
base  on  balls.  McGraw  leaps  into  the  air,  kicks 
his  heels  together,  claps  his  mitt,  shouts  at  the 
umpire,  runs  in  and  pats  the  next  batter  on  the 
back,  and  says  something  to  the  pitcher.  The 
crowd  gets  it  cue,  wakes  up  and  leaps  into  the  air, 
kicking  its  heels  together.  The  whole  atmosphere 
inside  the  park  is  changed  in  a  minute,  and  the 
air  is  bristling  with  enthusiasm.  The  other 
coacher,  at  first  base,  is  waving  his  hands  and 
running  up  and  down  the  line,  while  the  men  on 
the  bench  have  apparently  gained  new  hope. 
They  are  moving  about  restlessly,  and  the  next 
two  hitters  are  swinging  their  bats  in  anticipation 
with  a  vigor  which  augurs  ill  for  the  pitcher. 
The  game  has  found  Ponce  de  Leon's  fountain  of 


Coaching  Good  and  Bad         123 

youth,  and  the  little,  silent  actor  on  the  third 
base  coaching  line  is  the  cause  of  the  change. 

"Nick"  Altrock,  the  old  pitcher  on  the  Chicago 
White  Sox,  was  one  of  the  most  skilful  men  at 
handling  a  crowd  that  the  game  has  ever  developed. 
As  a  pitcher,  Altrock  was  largely  instrumental 
in  bringing  a  world's  championship  to  the  American 
League  team  in  1906,  and,  as  a  coacher,  after  his 
Big  League  pitching  days  were  nearly  done,  he 
won  many  a  game  by  his  work  on  the  lines  in 
pinches.  Baseball  has  produced  several  come- 
dians, some  with  questionable  ratings  as  humorists. 
There  is  "Germany"  Schaefer  of  the  Washington 
team,  and  there  were  "Rube"  Waddell,  "Bugs" 
Raymond  and  others,  but  "Nick"  Altrock  could 
give  the  best  that  the  game  has  brought  out  in  the 
way  of  comic-supplement  players  a  terrible  battle 
for  the  honors. 

At  the  old  south  side  park  in  Chicago,  I  have  seen 
him  go  to  the  lines  with  a  catcher's  mitt  and  a 
first-baseman's  glove  on  his  hands  and  lead  the 
untrained  mob  as  skilfully  as  one  of  those  pom- 
padoured  young  men  with  a  megaphone  does  the 
undergraduates  at  a  college  football  game. 

My  experience  as  a  pitcher  has  been  that  it 


124  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

is  not  the  steady,  unbroken  flood  of  howling 
and  yelling,  with,  the  incessant  pounding  of  feet, 
that  gets  on  the  nerves  of  a  ball-player,  but  the 
broken,  rhythmical  waves  of  sound  or  the  constant 
reiteration  of  one  expression.  A  man  gets  ac- 
customed to  the  steady  cheering.  It  becomes 
a  part  of  the  game  and  his  surroundings,  as  much 
as  the  stands  and  the  crowd  itself  are,  and  he 
does  not  know  that  it  is  there.  Let  the  coacher 
be  clever  enough  to  induce  a  crowd  to  repeat  over 
and  over  just  one  sentence  such  as  "Get  a  hit," 
"Get  a  hit,"  and  it  wears  on  the  steadiest  nerves. 
Nick  Altrock  had  his  baseball  chorus  trained  so 
that,  by  a  certain  motion  of  the  arm,  he  could  get 
the  crowd  to  do  this  at  the  right  moment. 

But  the  science  of  latter-day  coaching  means 
much  more  than  using  the  crowd.  All  coaching, 
like  all  Gaul  and  four  or  five  other  things,  is 
divided  into  three  parts,  defensive  coaching, 
offensive  coaching  and  the  use  of  the  crowd. 
Offensive  coaching  means  the  handling  of  base 
runners,  and  requires  quick  and  accurate  judgment. 
The  defensive  sort  is  the  advice  that  one  player 
on  the  field  gives  another  as  to  where  to  throw  the 
ball,  who  shall  take  a  hit,  and  how  the  base  runner 


Coaching  Good  and  Bad         125 

is  coming  into  the  bag.  There  is  a  sub-division 
of  defensive  coaching  which  might  be  called  the 
illegitimate  brand.  It  is  giving  "phoney"  advice 
to  a  base  runner  by  the  fielders  of  the  other  side 
that  may  lead  him,  in  the  excitement  of  the 
moment,  to  make  a  foolish  play.  This  style  has 
developed  largely  in  the  Big  Leagues  in  the  last 
three  or  four  years. 

Offensive  coaching,  in  my  opinion,  is  the  most 
important.  For  a  man  to  be  a  good  coacher  he 
must  be  trained  for  the  work.  The  best  coachers 
are  the  seasoned  players,  the  veterans  of  the 
game.  A  man  must  know  the  throwing  ability 
of  each  outfielder  on  the  opposing  club,  he  must 
be  familiar  with  the  speed  of  the  base  runner 
whom  he  is  handling,  and  he  must  be  so  closely 
acquainted  with  the  game  as  a  whole  that  he 
knows  the  stages  at  which  to  try  a  certain  play 
and  the  circumstances  under  which  the  same 
attempt  would  be  foolish.  Above  all  things,  he 
must  be  a  quick  thinker. 

Watch  McGraw  on  the  coaching  lines  some 
day.  As  he  crouches,  he  picks  up  a  pebble 
and  throws  it  out  of  his  way,  and  two  base  runners 
start  a  double  steal.  "Hughie"  Jennings  emits 


126  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

his  famous  "Ee-Yaah!"  and  the  third  baseman 
creeps  in,  expecting  Cobb  to  bunt  with  a  man 
on  first  base  and  no  one  out.  The  hitter  pushes 
the  ball  on  a  line  past  the  third  baseman.  The 
next  time  Jennings  shrieks  his  famous  war-cry, 
it  has  a  different  intonation,  and  the  batter  bunts. 

"Bill"  Dahlen  of  the  Brooklyn  club  shouts, 
"Watch  his  foot,"  and  the  base  runner  starts 
while  the  batter  smashes  the  ball  on  a  hit  and  run 
play.  Again  the  pitcher  hears  that  "Watch  his 
foot."  He  "wastes  one,"  so  that  the  batter  will 
not  get  a  chance  at  the  ball  and  turns  to  first 
base.  He  is  surprised  to  find  the  runner  anchored 
there.  Nothing  has  happened.  So  it  will  be  seen 
that  the  offensive  coacher  controls  the  situation 
and  directs  the  plays,  usually  taking  his  orders 
from  the  manager,  if  the  boss  himself  is  not  on 
the  lines. 

In  1911  the  Giants  led  the  National  League 
by  a  good  margin  in  stealing  bases,  and  to  this 
speed  many  critics  attributed  the  fact  that  the 
championship  was  won  by  the  club.  I  can  safely 
say  that  every  base  which  was  pilfered  by  a 
New  York  runner  was  stolen  by  the  direct  order 
of  McGraw,  except  in  the  few  games  from 


Coaching  Good  and  Bad          127 

which  he  was  absent.  Then  his  lietitenants 
followed  his  system  as  closely  as  any  one  can 
pursue  the  involved  and  intricate  style  that  he 
alone  understands.  If  it  was  the  base  running 
of  the  Giants  that  won  the  pennant  for  the  club, 
then  it  was  the  coaching  of  McGraw,  employing 
the  speed  of  his  men  and  his  opportunities,  which 
brought  the  championship  to  New  York. 

The  first  thing  that  every  manager  teaches  his 
players  now  is  to  obey  absolutely  the  orders  of 
the  coacher,  and  then  he  selects  able  men  to  give 
the  advice.  The  brain  of  McGraw  is  behind 
each  game  the  Giants  play,  and  he  plans  every 
move,  most  of  the  hitters  going  to  the  plate  with 
definite  instructions  from  him  as  to  what  to  try 
to  do.  In  order  to  make  this  system  efficient, 
absolute  discipline  must  be  assured.  If  a  player 
has  other  ideas  than  McGraw  as  to  what  should 
be  done,  "Mac's"  invariable  answer  to  him  is: 

"You  do  what  I  tell  you,  and  I  '11  take  the 
responsibility  if  we  lose." 

For  two  months  at  the  end  of  1911,  McGraw 
would  not  let  either  "Josh"  Devore  or  John 
Murray  swing  at  a  first  ball  pitched  to  them. 
Murray  did  this  one  day,  after  he  had  been  ordered 


128  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

not  to,  and  he  was  promptly  fined  $10  and  sat 
down  oh  the  bench,  while  Becker  played  right  field. 
Many  fans  doubtless  recall  the  substitution  of 
Becker,  but  could  not  understand  the  move. 

Murray  and  Devore  are  what  are  known  in 
baseball  as  "  first-ball  hitters."  That  is,  they 
invariably  hit  at  the  first  one  delivered.  They 
watch  a  pitcher  wind  up  and  swing  their  bats 
involuntarily,  as  a  man  blinks  his  eyes  when  he 
sees  a  blow  started.  It  is  probably  due  to  slight 
nervousness.  The  result  was  that  the  news  of 
this  weakness  spread  rapidly  around  the  circuit 
by  the  underground  routes  of  baseball,  and  every 
pitcher  in  the  League  was  handing  Devore  and 
Murray  a  bad  ball  on  the  first  one.  Of  course, 
each  would  miss  it  or  else  make  a  dinky  little  hit. 
They  were  always  "in  the  hole,"  which  means 
that  the  pitcher  had  the  advantage  in  the  count. 
McGraw  became  exasperated  after  Devore  had 
fanned  out  three  times  one  day  by  getting  bad 
starts,  hitting  at  the  first  ball. 

"After  this,"  said  McGraw  to  both  Murray  and 
Devore  in  the  clubhouse,  "if  either  of  you  moves 
his  bat  off  his  shoulder  at  a  first  ball,  even  if  it  cuts 
the  plate,  you  will  be  fined  $10  and  sat  down." 


Coaching  Good  and  Bad          129 

Murray  forgot  the  next  day,  saw  the  pitcher 
wind  up,  and  swung  his  bat  at  the  first  one. 
He  spent  the  rest  of  the  month  on  the  bench. 
But  Devore's  hitting  improved  at  once  because 
all  the  pitchers,  expecting  him  to  swing  at  the 
first  one,  were  surprised  to  find  him  "taking  it" 
and,  as  it  was  usually  bad,  he  had  the  pitcher 
constantly  "in  the  hole,"  instead  of  being  at  a 
disadvantage  himself.  For  this  reason  he  was 
able  to  guess  more  accurately  what  the  pitcher  was 
going  to  throw,  and  his  hitting  consequently  im- 
proved. So  did  Murray's  after  he  had  served  his 
term  on  the  bench.  The  right-fielder  hit  well  up  to 
the  world's  series  and  then  he  just  struck  a  slump 
that  any  player  is  liable  to  encounter.  But  so  de- 
pendent is  McGraw's  system  on  absolute  discipline 
for  its  success  that  he  dispensed  with  the  services 
of  a  good  player  for  a  month  to  preserve  his  style. 

In  contrast,  "Connie"  Mack,  the  manager  of 
the  Athletics,  and  by  many  declared  to  be  the 
greatest  leader  in  the  country  (although  each 
private,  of  course,  is  true  to  his  own  general), 
lets  his  players  use  their  own  judgment  largely. 
He  seldom  gives  a  batter  a  direct  order  unless 
the  pinch  is  very  stringent. 


130  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

The  most  difficult  position  to  fill  as  a  coacher 
is  at  third  base,  the  critical  corner.  There  a 
man's  judgment  must  be  lightning  fast  and  always 
accurate.  He  encourages  runners  with  his  voice, 
but  his  orders  are  given  primarily  with  his  hands, 
because  often  the  noise  made  by  the  crowd  drowns 
out  the  shouted  instructions.  Last,  he  must  be 
prepared  to  handle  all  sorts  of  base  running. 

On  nearly  every  ball  club,  there  are  some 
players  who  are  known  in  the  frank  parlance 
of  the  profession  as  "hog  wild  runners." 

The  expression  means  that  these  players  are 
bitten  by  a  sort  of  "bug"  which  causes  them  to 
lose  their  heads  when  once  they  get  on  the  bases. 
They  cannot  be  stopped,  oftentimes  fighting  with 
a  coacher  to  go  on  to  the  next  base,  when  it  is 
easy  to  see  that  if  the  attempt  is  made,  the  runner 
is  doomed. 

New  York  fans  have  often  seen  McGraw  dash 
out  into  the  line  at  third  base,  tackle  Murray, 
and  throw  him  back  on  the  bag.  He  is  a  "hog 
wild"  runner,  and  with  him  on  the  bases,  the 
duties  of  a  coacher  become  more  arduous.  He  will 
insist  on  scoring  if  he  is  not  stopped  or  does  not 
drop  dead. 


Coaching  Good  and  Bad          131 

Some  youngster  was  coaching  on  third  base 
in  a  game  with  Boston  in  the  summer  of  1911 
and  the  Giants  had  a  comfortable  lead  of  several 
runs.  Murray  was  on  second  when  the  batter 
hit  clearly  and  sharply  to  left  field.  Murray 
started,  and,  with  his  usual  intensity  of  purpose, 
rounded  third  base  at  top  speed,  bound  to  score. 
The  ball  was  already  on  the  way  home  when 
Murray,  about  ten  feet  from  the  bag,  tripped  and 
fell.  He  scrambled  safely  back  to  the  cushion 
on  all  fours.  There  was  nothing  else  to  do. 

"This  is  his  third  year  with  me,"  laughed  Mc- 
Graw  on  the  bench,  "and  that 's  the  first  time  he 
has  ever  failed  to  try  to  score  from  second  base 
on  a  hit  unless  he  was  tackled." 

All  ball  clubs  have  certain  "must"  motions 
which  are  as  strictly  observed  as  danger  signals 
on  a  railroad.  A  coacher's  hand  upraised  will 
stop  a  base  runner  as  abruptly  as  the  uplifted 
white  glove  of  a  traffic  policeman  halts  a  row  of 
automobiles.  A  wave  of  the  arm  will  start  a 
runner  going  at  top  speed  again. 

Many  times  a  quick-witted  ball-player  wins  a 
game  for  his  club  by  his  snap  judgment.  Again 
McGraw  is  the  master  of  that.  He  took  a  game 


132  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

from  the  Cubs  in  1911,  because,  always  alert  for 
flaws  in  the  opposition,  he  noticed  the  centre- 
fielder  drop  his  arm  after  getting  set  to  throw  the 
ball  home.  Devore  was  on  second  base,  and  one 
run  was  needed  to  win  the  game.  Doyle  hit 
sharply  to  centre  field,  and  Devore,  coming  from 
second,  started  to  slow  up  as  he  rounded  third. 
Hofman,  the  Chicago  centre-fielder,  perceiving 
this  slackening  of  pace,  dropped  his  arm.  McGraw 
noticed  this,  and,  with  a  wave  of  his  arm,  notified 
Devore  to  go  home.  With  two  strides  he  was  at 
top  speed  again,  and  Hofman,  taken  by  surprise, 
threw  badly. 

The  run  scored  which  won  the  game. 

The  pastime  of  bullyragging  the  pitcher  by  the 
coachers  has  lost  its  popularity  recently.  The 
wily  coacher  must  first  judge  the  temperament  of 
a  pitcher  before  he  dares  to  undertake  to  get  on  his 
nerves.  Clarke  Griffith,  formerly  the  manager 
of  Cincinnati,  has  a  reputation  for  being  able  to 
ruin  young  pitchers  just  attempting  to  establish 
themselves  in  the  Big  League.  Time  and  again 
he  has  forced  youngsters  back  to  the  minors  by 
his  constant  cry  of  "Watch  his  foot"  or  "He's 
going  to  waste  this  one." 


Coaching  Good  and  Bad          133 

The  rules  are  very  strict  now  about  talking  to 
pitchers,  but,  if  a  complaint  is  made,  Griffith 
declares  that  he  was  warning  the  batter  that  it 
was  to  be  a  pitchout,  which  is  perfectly  legitimate. 
The  rules  permit  the  coacher  to  talk  to  the  batter 
and  the  base  runners. 

Griffith  caught  a  Tartar  in  Grover  Cleveland 
Alexander,  the  sensational  pitcher  of  the  Phila- 
delphia club.  It  was  at  his  first  appearance  in 
Cincinnati  that  the  young  fellow  got  into  the 
hole  with  several  men  on  the  bases,  and  "Mike" 
Mitchell  coming  up  to  the  bat. 

"Now  here  is  where  we  get  a  look  at  the 
'yellow,'"  yelled  Griffith  at  Alexander. 

The  young  pitcher  walked  over  toward  third  base. 

"I  'm  going  to  make  that  big  boob  up  at  the 
bat  there  show  such  a  'yellow  streak'  that  you 
won't  be  able  to  see  any  white,"  declared  Alexan- 
der, and  then  he  struck  Mitchell  out.  Griffith 
had  tried  the  wrong  tactics. 

A  story  is  told  of  Fred  Clarke  and  "  Rube  "  Wad- 
dell,  the  eccentric  twirler.  Waddell  was  once  one 
of  the  best  pitchers  in  the  business  when  he  could 
concentrate  his  attention  on  his  work,  but  his 
mind  wandered  easily. 


134  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

"Now  pay  no  attention  to  Clarke,"  warned  his 
manager  before  the  game. 

Clarke  tried  everything  from  cajolery  to  abuse 
on  Waddell  with  no  effect,  because  the  eccentric 
"Rube"  had  been  tipped  to  fight  shy  of  the 
Pittsburg  manager.  Suddenly  Clarke  became 
friendly  and  walked  with  Waddell  between  innings, 
chatting  on  trivial  matters.  At  last  he  said: 

"Why  don't  you  come  out  on  my  ranch  in 
Kansas  and  hunt  after  the  season,  George?  I  Ve 
got  a  dog  out  there  you  might  train." 

"What  kind  of  a  dog?"  asked  Waddell  at  once 
interested. 

"Just  a  pup,"  replied  Clarke,  "and  you  can 
have  him  if  he  takes  a  fancy  to  you." 

"They  all  do,"  replied  Waddell.  "He's  as 
good  as  mine." 

The  next  inning  the  big  left-hander  was  still 
thinking  of  that  dog,  and  the  Pirates  made  five 
runs. 

In  many  instances  defensive  coaching  is  as 
important  as  the  offensive  brand,  which  simply 
indorses  the  old  axiom  that  any  chain  is  only  as 
strong  as  its  weakest  link  or  any  ball  club  is  only 
as  efficient  as  its  most  deficient  department. 


Coaching  Good  and  Bad          135 

When  Roger  Bresnahan  was  on  the  Giants,  he  was 
one  of  those  aggressive  players  who  are  always 
coaching  the  other  fielders  and  holding  a  team 
together,  a  type  so  much  desired  by  a  manager. 
If  a  slow  roller  was  hit  between  the  pitcher's 
box  and  third  base,  I  could  always  hear  "Rog" 
yelling,  "You  take  it,  Matty,"  or,  "Artie,  Artie, " 
meaning  Devlin,  the  third  baseman.  He  was  in 
a  position  to  see  which  man  would  be  better 
able  to  make  the  play,  and  he  gave  this  helpful 
advice.  His  coaching  saved  many  a  game  for 
the  Giants  in  the  old  days.  "Al"  Bridwell, 
the  former  shortstop,  was  of  the  same  type,  and, 
if  you  have  ever  attended  a  ball  game  at  the 
Polo  Grounds,  you  have  doubtless  heard  him  in 
his  shrill,  piercing  voice,  shouting: 

"I've  got  it!  I 've  got  it!"  or,  "You  take  it!" 
This  style  of  coaching  saves  ball-players  from 
accidents,  and  accidents  have  lost  many  a  pennant. 
I  have  always  held  that  it  was  a  lack  of  the  proper 
coaching  that  sent  "Cy"  Seymour,  formerly  the 
Giant  centre-fielder,  out  of  the  Big  Leagues  and 
back  to  the  minors.  Both  Murray  and  he  at- 
tempted to  catch  the  same  fly  in  the  season  of 
1909  and  came  into  collision.  Seymour  went 


136  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

down  on  the  field,  but  later  got  up  and  played  the 
game  out.  However,  he  hurt  his  leg  so  badly 
that  it  never  regained  its  strength. 

Then  there  is  that  other  style  of  defensive 
coaching  which  is  the  shouting  of  misleading 
advice  by  the  fielders  to  the  base  runners.  Collins 
and  Barry,  the  second  baseman  and  shortstop 
on  the  Athletics,  worked  a  clever  trick  in  one  of 
the  games  of  the  1911  world's  series  which  il- 
lustrates my  point.  The  play  is  as  old  as  the  one 
in  which  the  second  baseman  hides  the  ball  under 
his  shirt  so  as  to  catch  a  man  asleep  off  first  base, 
but  often  the  old  ones  are  the  more  effective. 

Doyle  was  on  first  base  in  one  of  the  contests 
played  in  Philadelphia,  and  the  batter  lifted  a 
short  foul  fly  to  Baker,  playing  third  base.  The 
crowd  roared  and  the  coacher's  voice  was  drowned 
by  the  volume  of  sound.  "Eddie"  Collins  ran 
to  cover  second  base,  and  Barry  scrabbled  his 
hand  along  the  dirt  as  if  preparing  to  field  a 
ground  ball. 

"Throw  it  here!  Throw  it  here!"  yelled 
Collins,  and  Doyle,  thinking  that  they  were  trying 
for  a  force  play,  increased  his  efforts  to  reach 
second.  Baker  caught  the  fly,  and  Larry  was 


Coaching  Good  and  Bad          137 

doubled  up  at  first  base  so  far  that  he  looked 
foolish.  Yet  it  really  was  not  his  fault.  The 
safest  thing  for  a  base  runner  to  do  under  those 
circumstances  is  to  get  one  glimpse  of  the  coacher's 
motions  and  then  he  can  tell  whether  to  go  back 
or  to  go  on. 

"Johnnie"  Kling,  the  old  catcher  of  the  Chicago 
Cubs,  used  to  work  a  clever  piece  of  defensive 
.coaching  with  John  Evers,  the  second  baseman. 
This  was  tried  on  young  players  and  usually  was 
successful.  The  victim  was  picked  out  before 
the  game,  and  the  play  depended  upon  him 
arriving  at  second  base.  Once  there  the  schemers 
worked  it  as  follows: 

When  the  "busher"  was  found  taking  a  large 
lead,  Evers  would  dash  to  the  bag  and  Kling  would 
make  a  bluff  to  throw  the  ball,  but  hold  it.  The 
runner  naturally  scampered  for  the  base.  Then, 
seeing  that  Kling  had  not  thrown,  he  would  start 
to  walk  away  from  it  again. 

"If  the  Jew  had  thrown  that  time,  he  would 
have  had  you,"  Evers  would  carelessly  hurl 
over  his  shoulder  at  the  intended  victim.  The 
man  usually  turned  for  a  fatal  second  to  reply. 
Tinker,  who  was  playing  shortstop,  rushed  in 


138  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

from  behind,  Kling  whipped  the  ball  to  the  bag, 
and  the  man,  caught  off  his  guard,  was  tagged 
out.  The  play  was  really  made  before  the  game, 
when  the  victim  was  selected. 

It  was  this  same  Evers-Kling  combination  that 
turned  the  tide  in  the  first  inning  of  the  most 
famous  game  ever  played  in  baseball,  the  extra 
one  between  the  Giants  and  the  Cubs  in  the 
season  of  1908.  The  Chicago  club  was  nervous 
in  the  first  inning.  Tenney  was  hit  by  a  pitched 
ball,  and  Herzog  walked.  It  looked  as  if  Pfeister, 
the  Chicago  pitcher,  was  losing  his  grip.  Bresna- 
han  struck  out,  and  Kling,  always  alert,  dropped 
the  third  strike,  but  conveniently  at  his  feet. 
Thinking  that  here  was  an  opportunity  the 
crowd  roared.  Evers,  playing  deep,  almost  behind 
Herzog,  shouted,  "Go  on!" 

Herzog  took  the  bait  in  the  excitement  of  the 
moment  and  ran — and  was  nipped  many  yards 
from  first  base. 

There  are  many  tricks  to  the  coacher's  trade, 
both  offensive  and  defensive,  and  it  is  the  quickest- 
witted  man  who  is  the  best  coacher.  The  sentry 
at  first  yells  as  the  pitcher  winds  up,  "There  he 
goes!"  imitating  the  first  baseman  as  nearly  as 


Coaching  Good  and  Bad          139 

possible,  in  the  hope  that  the  twirler  will  waste 
one  by  pitching  out  and  thus  give  the  batter  an 
advantage.  The  coacher  on  third  base  will  shout 
at  the  runner  on  a  short  hit  to  the  outfield,  "Take 
your  turn!"  in  the  dim  hope  that  the  fielder, 
seeing  the  man  rounding  third,  will  throw  the 
ball  home,  and  the  hitter  can  thus  make  an  extra 
base.  And  the  job  of  coaching  is  no  sinecure. 
McGraw  has  told  me  after  directing  a  hard  game 
that  he  is  as  tired  as  if  he  had  played. 


vn 

Honest  and  Dishonest  Sign  Stealing 

Everything  Fair  in  Baseball  except  the  Dishonest  Steal- 
ing of  Signals — The  National  Game  More  a  Con- 
test of  the  Wits  than  Most  Onlookers  Imagine. 

AA7"HEN  the  Philadelphia  Athletics  unexpect- 
*  *  edly  defeated  the  Chicago  Cubs  in  the 
world's  series  of  1910,  the  National  League  players 
cried  that  their  signals  had  been  stolen  by  the 
American  League  team,  and  that,  because  Connie 
Mack's  batters  knew  what  to  expect,  they  had  won 
the  championship. 

But  were  the  owners  or  any  member  of  the 
Philadelphia  club  arrested  charged  with  grand 
larceny  in  stealing  the  baseball  championship 
of  the  world?  No.  Was  there  any  murmur 
against  the  methods  of  Connie  Mack's  men? 
No,  again.  By  a  strange  kink  in  the  ethics 
of  baseball  John  Kling,  the  Chicago  catcher, 
140 


Honest  and  Dishonest  Sign  Stealing  141 

was  blamed  by  the  other  players  on  the  defeated 
team  for  the  signs  being  stolen.  They  charged 
that  he  had  been  careless  in  covering  his  signals 
and  that  the  enemy's  coachers,  particularly 
Topsy  Hartsell,  a  clever  man  at  it,  had  seen 
them  from  the  lines.  This  was  really  the  cause 
of  Kling  leaving  the  Cubs  and  going  to  Boston 
in  1911. 

After  the  games  were  over  and  the  series  was  lost, 
many  of  the  players,  and  especially  the  pitchers, 
would  hardly  speak  to  Kling,  the  man  who  had 
as  much  as  any  one  else  to  do  with  the  Cubs 
winning  four  championships,  and  the  man  who  by 
his  great  throwing  had  made  the  reputations  of 
a  lot  of  their  pitchers.  But  the  players  were 
sore  because  they  had  lost  the  series  and  lost  the 
extra  money  which  many  of  them  had  counted 
as  their  own  before  the  games  started,  and  they 
looked  around  for  some  one  to  blame  and  found 
Kling.  One  of  the  pitchers  complained  after  he 
had  lost  a  game: 

"Can't  expect  a  guy  to  win  with  his  catcher 
giving  the  signs  so  the  coachers  can  read  'em 
and  tip  the  batters." 

"And  you  can't  expect  a  catcher  to  win  a  game 


142  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

for  you  if  you  have  n't  got  anything  on  the  ball," 
replied  Kling,  for  he  is  quick  tempered  and  cannot 
stand  reflections  on  his  ability.  But  the  pitcher's 
chance  remark  had  given  the  other  players  an  ex- 
cuse for  fixing  the  blame,  and  it  was  put  on  Kling. 

I  honestly  do  not  believe  that  Kling  was  in 
any  way  responsible  for  the  rout  of  the  proud 
Cubs.  The  Chicago  pitchers  were  away  off 
form  in  the  series  and  could  not  control  the  ball, 
thus  getting  themselves  "into  the  hole"  all  the 
time.  Shrewd  Connie  Mack  soon  realized  this 
and  ordered  his  batters  to  wait  everything  out, 
to  make  the  twirlers  throw  every  ball  possible. 
The  result  was  that,  with  the  pitcher  continually 
in  the  hole,  the  batters  were  guessing  what  was 
coming  and  frequently  guessing  right,  as  any  smart 
hitter  could  under  the  circumstances.  This  made 
it  look  as  if  the  Athletics  were  getting  the  Cubs' 
signals. 

"Why,  I  changed  signs  every  three  innings, 
Matty,"  Kling  told  me  afterwards  in  discussing 
the  charge.  "Some  of  the  boys  said  that  I  gave 
the  old  bended-knee  sign  for  a  curve  ball.  Well, 
did  you  ever  find  anything  to  improve  on  the  old 
ones?  That 's  why  they  are  old." 


Honest  and  Dishonest  Sign  Stealing  143 

But  the  Cubs  still  point  the  finger  of  scorn 
at  Kling,  for  it  hurts  to  lose.  I  know  it,  I  have 
lost  myself.  Even  though  the  Athletics  are 
charged  with  stealing  the  signs  whether  they  did 
or  not,  it  is  no  smirch  on  the  character  of  the 
club,  for  they  stole  honestly — which  sounds  like  a 
paradox. 

"You  have  such  jolly  funny  morals  in  this 
bally  country,"  declared  an  Englishman  I  once 
met.  "You  steal  and  rob  in  baseball  and  yet 
you  call  it  fair.  Now  in  cricket  we  give  our 
opponents  every  advantage,  don't  cher  know, 
and  after  the  game  we  are  all  jolly  good  fellows 
at  tea  together." 

This  brings  us  down  to  the  ethics  of  signal 
stealing.  Each  game  has  its  own  recognized 
standards  of  fairness.  For  instance,  no  tricks 
are  tolerated  in  tennis,  yet  the  baseball  manager 
who  can  devise  some  scheme  by  which  he  dis- 
concerts his  opponents  is  considered  a  great  leader. 
I  was  about  to  say  that  all  is  fair  in  love,  war,  and 
baseball,  but  will  modify  that  too  comprehensive 
statement  by  saying  all  is  fair  in  love,  war,  and 
baseball  except  stealing  signals  dishonestly,  which 
listens  like  another  paradox.  Therefore,  I  shall 


144  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

divide  the  subject  of  signal  stealing  into  half 
portions,  the  honest  and  the  dishonest  halves, 
and,  since  we  are  dealing  in  paradoxes,  take  up 
the  latter  first. 

Dishonest  signal  stealing  might  be  defined  as 
obtaining  information  by  artificial  aids.  The 
honest  methods  are  those  requiring  cleverness  of 
eye,  mind,  and  hand  without  outside  assistance. 
One  of  the  most  flagrant  and  for  a  time  successful 
pieces  of  signal  stealing  occurred  in  Philadelphia 
several  years  ago. 

Opposing  players  can  usually  tell  when  the 
batsman  is  getting  the  signs,  because  he  steps  up 
and  sets  himself  for  a  curve  with  so  much  confid- 
lence.  During  the  season  of  1899  the  report  went 
around  the  circuit  that  the  Philadelphia  club 
was  stealing  signals,  because  the  batters  were 
popping  them  all  on  the  nose,  but  no  one  was  able 
to  discover  the  transmitter.  The  coachers  were 
closely  watched  and  it  was  evident  that  these 
sentinels  were  not  getting  the  signs. 

It  was  while  the  Washington  club,  then  in  the 
National  League,  was  playing  Philadelphia  that 
there  came  a  rainy  morning  which  made  the  field 
very  wet,  and  for  a  long  time  it  was  doubtful 


Honest  and  Dishonest  Sign  Stealing  145 

whether  a  game  could  be  played  in  the  afternoon, 
but  the  Washington  club  insisted  on  it  and 
overruled  the  protests  of  the  Phillies.  Arlie 
Latham,  now  the  coacher  on  the  Giants',  was 
playing  third  base  for  the  Senators  at  the  time. 
He  has  told  me  often  since  how  he  discovered  the 
device  by  which  the  signs  were  being  stolen.  He 
repeated  the  story  to  me  recently  when  I  asked 
him  for  the  facts  to  use  in  this  book. 

"There  was  a  big  puddle  in  the  third  base 
coaching  box  that  day,"  said  Latham."  And 
it  was  in  the  third  inning  that  I  noticed  Cupid 
Childs,  the  Philadelphia  second  baseman,  coach- 
ing. He  stood  with  one  foot  in  the  puddle  and 
never  budged  it,  although  the  water  came  up 
to  his  shoe-laces.  He  usually  jumped  around 
when  on  the  lines,  and  this  stillness  surprised  me. 

" '  Better  go  get  your  rubbers  if  you  are  goin* 
to  keep  that  trilby  there/  I  said  to  him.  '  Charley 
horse  and  the  rheumatism  have  no  terrors  for  you.' 

"But  he  kept  his  foot  planted  in  the  puddle 
just  the  same,  and  first  thing  the  batter  cracked 
out  a  base  hit. 

"  'So  that's  where  you're  gettin'  the  signs?' 
I  said  to  him,  not  guessing  that  it  really  was. 


146  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

Then  he  started  to  jump  around  and  we  got 
the  next  two  batters  out  right  quick,  there  being  a 
big  slump  in  the  Philadelphia  hitting  as  soon  as 
he  took  his  foot  out  of  that  puddle. 

"When  the  Washington  club  went  to  bat  I 
hiked  out  to  the  third  base  line  and  started  to 
coach,  putting  my  foot  into  the  puddle  as  near 
the  place  where  Childs  had  had  his  as  I  could. 

"  'Here's  where  we  get  a  few  signs,'  I  yelled, 
'and  I  ain't  afraid  of  Charley  horse,  either.' 

"I  looked  over  at  the  Philadelphia  bench,  and 
there  were  all  the  extra  players  sitting  with  their 
caps  pulled  down  over  their  eyes,  so  that  I  could  n't 
see  their  faces.  The  fielders  all  looked  the  other 
way.  Then  I  knew  I  was  on  a  warm  scent. 

"When  the  Washington  players  started  back 
for  the  field  I  told  Tommy  Corcoran  that  I 
thought  they  must  be  getting  the  signs  from  the 
third  base  coaching  box,  although  I  had  n't  been 
able  to  feel  anything  there.  He  went  over  and 
started  pawing  around  in  the  dirt  and  water  with 
his  spikes  and  fingers.  Pretty  soon  he  dug  up  a 
square  chunk  of  wood  with  a  buzzer  on  the  under 
side  of  it. 

"  'That   ought   to  help  their  hitting  a  little/ 


Honest  and  Dishonest  Sign  Stealing  147 

he  remarked  as  he  kept  on  pulling.  Up  came  a 
wire,  and  when  he  started  to  pull  on  it  he  found 
that  it  was  buried  about  an  inch  under  the  soil 
and  ran  across  the  outfield.  He  kept  right  on 
coiling  it  up  and  following  it,  like  a  hound  on  a 
scent,  the  Philadelphia  players  being  very  busy 
a.11  this  time  and  nervous  like  a  busher  at  his  debut 
into  Big  League  society.  One  of  the  substitutes 
started  to  run  for  the  clubhouse,  but  I  stopped  him. 

"Tommy  was  galloping  by  this  time  across  the 
outfield  and  all  the  time  pulling  up  this  wire. 
It  led  straight  to  the  clubhouse,  and  there  sitting 
where  he  could  get  a  good  view  of  the  catcher's 
signs  with  a  pair  of  field-glasses  was  Morgan 
Murphy.  The  wire  led  right  to  him. 

"  'What  cher  doin'?"  asked  Tommy. 

"  'Watchin'  the  game,'  replied  Murphy. 

1  '  Could  n't  you  see  it  easier  from  the  bench 
than  lookin'  through  those  peepers  from  here? 
And  why  are  you  connected  up  with  this  machine?' 
inquired  Tommy,  showin'  him  the  chunk  of  wood 
with  the  buzzer  attached. 

'  4I  guess  you've  got  the  goods,'  Murphy 
answered  with  a  laugh,  and  all  the  newspapers 
laughed  at  it  then,  too.  But  the  batting  averages 


148  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

of  the  Philadelphia  players  took  an  awful  slump 
after  that. 

"  'Why  didn't  they  tip  me?'  asked  Murphy 
as  he  put  aside  his  field-glasses  and  went  to  the 
bench  and  watched  the  rest  of  the  game  from  there. 
And  we  later  won  that  contest,  our  first  victory 
of  the  series,  which  was  no  discredit  to  us,  since 
it  was  like  gamblin'  against  loaded  dice,"  concluded 
"Arlie." 

The  newspapers  may  have  laughed  at  the 
incident  in  those  days,  but  since  that  time  the 
National  Commission  has  intimated  that  if  there 
was  ever  a  recurrence  of  such  tactics,  the  club 
caught  using  them  would  be  subjected  to  a  heavy 
fine  and  possibly  expulsion  from  the  League. 
So  much  have  baseball  standards  improved. 

The  incident  is  a  great  illustration  of  the  unfair 
method  of  obtaining  signs.  Since  then,  there 
have  come  from  time  to  time  reports  of  teams 
talcing  signals  by  mechanical  devices.  The  Ath- 
letics once  declared  that  the  American  League 
team  in  New  York  had  a  man  stationed  behind 
the  fence  in  centre  field  with  a  pair  of  glasses 
and  that  he  shifted  a  line  in  the  score  board 
slightly,  so  as  to  tip  off  the  batters,  but  this 


Honest  and  Dishonest  Sign  Stealing  149 

charge  was  never  confirmed.  It  was  said  a  short 
time  ago  that  the  Athletics  themselves  had  a  spy 
located  in  a  house  outside  their  grounds  and  that 
he  tipped  the  batters  by  raising  and  lowering 
an  awning  a  trifle.  When  the  Giants  went  to 
Philadelphia  in  1911  for  the  first  game  of  the 
world's  series  in  the  enemy's  camp,  I  kept  watching 
the  windows  of  the  houses  just  outside  of  the  park 
for  suspicious  movements,  but  could  discover 
none.  Once  in  Pittsburg  I  thought  that  the 
Pirates  were  getting  the  Giants'  signals  and  I 
kept  my  eyes  glued  to  the  score  board  in  centre 
field,  throughout  one  whole  series,  to  see  if  any 
of  the  figures  moved  or  changed  positions,  as  that 
seemed  to  be  the  only  place  from  which  a  batter 
could  be  tipped.  But  I  never  discovered  anything 
wrong. 

There  are  many  fair  ways  to  steal  the  signs  of 
the  enemy,  so  many  that  the  smart  ball-player 
is  always  kept  on  the  alert  by  them.  Baseball 
geniuses,  some  almost  magicians,  are  constantly 
looking  for  new  schemes  to  find  out  what  the 
catcher  is  telling  the  pitcher,  what  the  batter  is 
tipping  the  base  runner  to,  or  what  the  coacher's 
instructions  are.  The  Athletics  have  a  great 


150  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

reputation  as  being  a  club  able  to  get  the  other 
team's  signs  if  they  are  obtainable.  This  is  their 
record  all  around  the  American  League  circuit. 

Personally  I  do  not  believe  that  Connie  Mack's 
players  steal  as  much  information  as  they  get  the 
credit  for,  but  the  reputation  itself,  if  they  never 
get  a  sign,  is  valuable.  If  a  prizefighter  is  supposed 
to  have  a  haymaking  punch  in  his  left  hand, 
the  other  fellow  is  going  to  be  constantly  looking 
out  for  that  left.  If  the  players  on  a  club  have 
great  reputations  as  signal  stealers,  their  opponents 
are  going  to  be  on  their  guard  all  the  time,  which 
gives  the  team  with  the  reputation  just  that  much 
advantage.  If  a  pitcher  has  a  reputation,  he  has 
the  percentage  on  the  batter.  Therefore,  this 
gossip  about  the  signal-stealing  ability  of  the 
Athletics  has  added  to  their  natural  strength. 

"Bill,"  I  said  to  Dahlen,  the  Brooklyn  manager, 
one  day  toward  the  end  of  the  season  of  1911, 
when  the  Giants  were  playing  their  schedule  out 
after  the  pennant  was  sure,  "see  if  you  can  get 
the  Chiefs  signs." 

Dahlen  coached  on  first  base  and  then  went 
to  third,  always  looking  for  Meyers's  signals. 
Pretty  soon  he  came  to  me. 


Honest  and  Dishonest  Sign  Stealing  151 

"I  can  see  them  a  little  bit,  Matty,"  he  reported. 

"Chief,"  I  said  to  Meyers  that  night  as  I  button- 
holed him  in  the  clubhouse,  "you  Ve  got  to  be 
careful  to  cover  up  your  signs  in  the  Big  Series. 
The  Athletics  have  a  reputation  of  being  pretty 
slick  at  getting  them.  And  to  make  sure  we  will 
arrange  a  set  of  signs  that  I  can  give  if  we  think 
they  are  'hep'  to  yours." 

So  right  there  Meyers  and  I  fixed  up  a  code 
of  signals  that  I  could  give  to  him,  the  Chief 
always  to  use  some  himself  which  would  be 
"phoney"  of  course,  and  might  have  the  desirable 
effect  of  "crossing  them." 

In  the  first  championship  game  at  the  Polo 
Grounds,  Topsy  Hartsell  was  out  on  the  coaching 
lines  looking  for  signals,  and  the  Chief  started 
giving  the  real  ones  until  Davis  stepped  into  a  curve 
ball  and  cracked  it  to  left  field  for  a  single,  scoring 
the  only  run  made  by  the  Athletics.  Right  here 
Meyers  stopped,  and  I  began  transmitting  the 
private  information,  although  the  Chief  continued 
to  pass  out  signals  that  meant  nothing.  The 
Athletics  were  getting  the  Indian's  and  could  not 
understand  why  the  answers  seemed  invariably 
to  be  wrong,  for  a  couple  of  them  struck  out 


152  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

swinging  at  bad  balls,  and  one  batter  narrowly 
avoided  being  hit  by  a  fast  one  when  apparently 
he  had  been  tipped  off  to  a  curve  and  was  set 
ready  to  swing  at  it.  They  did  not  discover  that 
I  was  behind  the  signals,  although  to  make  this 
method  successful  the  catcher  must  be  a  clever 
man.  If  he  makes  it  too  obvious  that  his  signals 
are  "phoney"  and  are  meant  to  be  seen,  then  the 
other  club  will  look  around  for  the  source  of  the 
real  ones.  Meyers  carefully  concealed  his  mis- 
leading wig-wags  beneath  his  chest  protector, 
under  his  glove  and  behind  his  knee,  as  any  good 
catcher  does  his  real  signs,  so  they  would  not 
look  at  my  head. 

Many  persons  argue:  if  a  man  sees  the  signs, 
what  good  does  it  do  him  if  he  does  not  know  what 
they  mean?  It  is  easy  for  a  smart  ball-player  to 
deduce  the  answers,  because  there  are  only  three 
real  signs  passed  between  a  pitcher  and  catcher, 
the  sign  for  the  fast  one,  for  the  curve  ball  and 
for  the  pitchout.  If  a  coacher  sees  a  catcher 
open  his  hand  behind  his  glove  and  then  watches 
the  pitcher  throw  a  fast  one,  he  is  likely  to  guess 
that  the  open  palm  says  "Fast  one." 

After  a  coacher  has  stolen  the  desired  informa- 


Honest  and  Dishonest  Sign  Stealing  153 

tion,  he  must  be  clever  to  pass  it  along  to  the 
batter  without  the  other  club  being  aware  that  he 
is  doing  it.  He  may  straighten  up  to  tell  the 
batter  a  curve  ball  is  coming,  and  bend  over  to 
forecast  a  fast  one,  and  turn  his  back  as  a  neutral 
signal,  meaning  that  he  does  not  know  what  is 
coming.  If  a  coacher  is  smart  enough  to  pass 
the  meanings  to  the  batter  without  the  other 
team  getting  on,  he  may  go  through  the  entire 
season  as  a  transmitter  of  information.  To  steal 
signs  fairly  requires  quickness  of  mind,  eye  and 
action.  Few  players  can  do  it  successfully. 
Perhaps  that  is  why  it  is  considered  fair. 

If  a  team  is  going  to  make  a  success  of  signal 
stealing  it  must  get  every  sign  that  is  given, 
for  an  occasional  crumb  of  information  picked  up 
at  random  is  worse  than  none  at  all.  First,  it 
is  dangerous.  A  batter,  tipped  off  that  a  curved 
ball  is  coming,  steps  up  to  the  plate  and  is  surprised 
to  meet  a  fast  one,  which  often  he  has  not  time  to 
dodge.  Many  a  good  ball-player  has  been  injured 
in  this  way,  and  an  accident  to  a  star  has  cost 
more  than  one  pennant. 

"Joe"  Kelley,  formerly  manager  of  the  Reds, 
was  coaching  in  Cincinnati  one  day  several  years 


154  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

ago,  and  "Eagle  Eye  Jake"  Beckley,  the  old 
first  baseman  and  a  chronic  three  hundred  hitter, 
was  at  the  bat.  I  had  been  feeding  him  low  drops 
and  Kelley,  on  the  third  base  line,  thought  he 
was  getting  the  signals  that  Jack  Warner,  the 
Giant  catcher  in  a  former  cast  of  characters, 
was  giving.  I  saw  Kelley  apparently  pass  some 
information  to  Beckley,  and  the  latter  stepped 
almost  across  the  plate  ready  for  a  curve.  He 
encountered  a  high,  fast  one,  close  in,  and  he 
encountered  it  with  that  part  of  him  between  his 
neck  and  hat  band.  "Eagle  Eye"  was  uncon- 
scious for  two  days  after  that  and  in  the  hospital 
several  weeks.  When  he  got  back  into  the  game 
he  said  to  me  one  day: 

"Why  did  n't  you  throw  me  that  curve,  Matty, 
that  'Joe'  tipped  me  to?" 

"Were  you  tipped  off?"  I  asked.  "Then  it 
was  'Joe's'  error,  not  mine." 

"Say,"  he  answered,  "if  I  ever  take  another 
sign  from  a  coacher  I  hope  the  ball  kills  me." 

"It  probably  will,"  I  replied.  "That  one 
nearly  did." 

It  is  one  of  the  risks  of  signal  stealing.  Beckley 
had  received  the  wrong  information  and  I  felt 


Honest  and  Dishonest  Sign  Stealing  155 

no  qualms  at  hitting  him,  for  it  was  not  a  wild 
pitch  but  a  misinterpreted  signal  which  had  put 
him  out  of  the  game.  His  manager,  not  I,  was 
to  blame.  For  this  reason  many  nervous  players 
refuse  to  accept  any  information  from  a  coacher, 
even  if  the  coacher  thinks  he  knows  what  is  going 
to  be  pitched,  because  they  do  not  dare  take  the 
risk  of  getting  hit  by  a  fast  one,  against  which 
they  have  little  protection  if  set  for  a  curve.  On 
this  account  few  National  League  clubs  attempt 
to  steal  signs  as  a  part  of  the  regular  team  work, 
but  many  individuals  make  a  practice  of  it  for 
their  own  benefit  and  for  the  benefit  of  the  batter, 
if  he  is  not  of  the  timid  type. 

As  soon  as  a  runner  gets  on  second  base  he  is 
in  an  excellent  position  to  see  the  hands  of  the 
catcher,  and  it  is  then  that  the  man  behind  the 
bat  is  doing  all  that  he  can  cover  up.  Jack  Warner, 
the  old  Giant,  used  sometimes  to  give  his  signals 
with  his  mouth  in  this  emergency,  because  they 
were  visible  from  the  pitcher's  box,  but  not  from 
second  base.  The  thieves  were  looking  at  his 
hands  for  them.  In  the  National  League,  Leach, 
Clarke,  Wagner,  Bresnahan,  Evers,  Tinker  and 
a  few  more  of  the  sort  are  dangerous  to  have  on 


156  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

second.  Wagner  will  get  on  the  middle  sack 
and  watch  the  catcher  until  he  thinks  that  he  has 
discovered  the  pitchout  sign,  which  means  a  ball 
is  to  be  wasted  in  the  hope  that  a  base  runner  can 
be  caught.  Wagner  takes  a  big  lead,  and  the 
catcher,  tempted,  gives  the  "office"  to  waste  one, 
thinking  to  nail  "Hans"  off  second.  The  Dutch- 
man sees  it,  and  instead  of  running  back  to  second 
dashes  for  third.  He  starts  as  the  catcher  lets  go 
of  the  ball  to  throw  to  second  and  can  usually 
make  the  extra  base. 

Many  coachers,  who  do  not  attempt  to  get 
the  signs  for  fast  and  curved  balls,  study  the 
catcher  to  get  his  pitchout  sign,  because  once  this 
is  recognized  it  gives  the  team  at  the  bat  a  great 
advantage.  If  a  coacher  sees  the  catcher  give  the 
pitchout  signal  he  can  stop  the  runner  from 
trying  to  steal  and  the  pitcher  has  wasted  a  ball 
and  is  "in  the  hole."  Then  if  his  control  is 
uncertain  the  result  is  likely  to  be  disastrous. 

Several  players  in  the  National  League  are 
always  trying  to  get  the  batter's  signs.  Bresnahan, 
the  manager  and  catcher  of  the  St.  Louis  club, 
devotes  half  his  time  and  energy  to  looking  for 
the  wireless  code  employed  by  batter  and  base 


Honest  and  Dishonest  Sign  Stealing  157 

runner.  If  he  can  discover  the  hit  and  run 
sign,  then  he  is  able  to  order  a  pitchout  and  catch 
the  man  who  has  started  to  run  in  response  to 
it  several  feet  at  second  base.  He  is  a  genius  at 
getting  this  information. 

Once  late  in  1911,  when  the  New  York  club  was 
in  St.  Louis  on  the  last  trip  West,  I  came  up  to 
the  bat  with  Fletcher  on  first  base.  I  rubbed  the 
end  of  my  stick  with  my  hand  and  Roger  exclaimed : 

"Why,  that's  your  old  hit  and  run,  Matty! 
What  are  you  trying  to  do,  kid  me?" 

"I  forgot  you  knew  it,  Rog,"  I  answered, 
"but  it  goes." 

He  thought  I  was  attempting  to  cross  him  and 
did  not  order  a  pitchout.  The  sign  had  been 
given  intentionally.  I  hit  the  ball  and  had  the 
laugh  on  him.  If  a  catcher  can  get  a  pitchout 
on  a  hit  and  run  sign  he  upsets  the  other  team 
greatly.  Take  a  fast  man  on  first  base  and  the 
batter  signs  him  that  he  is  going  to  hit  the  next 
ball.  The  runner  gets  his  start  and  the  ball 
comes  up  so  wide  that  the  batter  could  not  half 
reach  it  with  a  ten-foot  bat.  The  runner  is  caught 
easily  at  second  base  and  it  makes  him  look  foolish. 
That  is  why  so  many  catchers  devote  time  to 


158  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

looking  for  this  signal.  It  is  a  great  fruit 
bearer. 

Many  of  the  extra  players  on  the  bench  are 
always  on  the  alert  for  the  hit  and  run  sign. 
This  is  a  typical  situation: 

The  Giants  were  playing  the  Pittsburg  club  one 
day  in  1911.  Byrne  was  on  first  base.  Fred 
Clarke  was  at  bat  and  Byrne  started  for  second 
while  Clarke  hit  the  ball  to  right  field,  Byrne 
reaching  third  base  on  the  play. 

"What  did  he  do?"  asked  Ames. 

"Did  you  get  it,  Matty?"  inquired  Wiltse. 

"No,"  I  answered.     "Did  you?" 

"I  think  he  tapped  his  bat  on  the  plate,"  replied 
Wiltse.  The  next  time  Clarke  came  up  we  were 
all  looking  to  see  if  he  tapped  his  bat  on  the 
plate.  Byrne  was  again  on  first  base.  The 
Pirates'  manager  fixed  his  cap,  he  stepped  back 
out  of  the  box  and  knocked  the  dirt  out  of  his 
cleats,  and  he  did  two  or  three  other  natural  things 
before  the  pitch,  but  nothing  happened.  Then 
he  tapped  his  bat  on  the  plate. 

"Make  him  put  them  over,  Chief,"  yelled  Wiltse 
which,  translated,  meant,  "Order  a  pitch-out, 
Chief.  He  just  gave  Byrne  the  hit  and  run  sign." 


Honest  and  Dishonest  Sign  Stealing  159 

Meyers  signed  for  a  pitchout,  and  Byrne  was 
caught  ten  feet  from  second.  Wiltse  on  the  bench 
had  really  nailed  the  base  runner.  As  soon  as  a 
sign  is  discovered  it  is  communicated  to  the  other 
players,  and  they  are  always  watching  for  it, 
but  try  to  conceal  the  fact  that  they  recognize  it, 
because,  as  soon  as  a  batter  discovers  that  his 
messages  are  being  read,  he  changes  his  code. 

From  these  few  facts  about  signals  and  sign 
stealing  some  idea  of  the  battle  of  wits  that  is 
going  on  between  two  ball  clubs  in  a  game  may 
be  obtained.  That  is  why  so  few  men  without 
brains  last  in  the  Big  Leagues  nowadays.  A 
young  fellow  broke  in  with  the  Giants  a  few  years 
ago  and  was  very  anxious  to  make  good.  He 
was  playing  shortstop. 

"Watch  for  the  catcher's  signs  and  then  shift," 
McGraw  told  him  one  day.  It  is  well  known  in 
baseball  that  a  right-handed  hitter  will  naturally 
push  a  curve  over  the  outside  corner  of  the  plate 
toward  right  field  and  over  the  inside  he  will  pull 
it  around  toward  third  base.  But  this  youngster 
was  overanxious  and  would  shift  before  the 
pitcher  started  to  deliver  the  ball.  Some  smart 
player  on  another  club  noticed  this  and  tipped 


160  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

the  batters  off  to  watch  the  youngster  for  the  signs. 
When  he  shifted  toward  second  base  the  batter  set 
himself  for  a  ball  over  the  outside  corner.  For 
a  long  time  McGraw  could  not  understand  how 
the  other  teams  were  getting  the  Giants'  signs, 
especially  as  it  was  on  our  home  grounds.  At 
last  he  saw  the  new  infielder  shift  one  day  and 
the  batter  prepare  for  an  inside  ball. 

"Say,"  he  said  to  the  player,  rushing  on  the 
field  alter  he  had  stopped  the  pitcher,  "do  you 
know  you  are  telegraphing  the  signs  to  the  batters 
by  moving  around  before  the  pitcher  throws  the 
ball?" 

Bill  Dahlen,  formerly  a  shortstop  on  the  Giants, 
used  to  shift,  but  he  was  clever  enough  to  wait 
until  the  pitcher  had  started  his  motion,  when 
it  was  too  late  for  the  batter  to  look  at  him. 

Ball-players  are  always  looking  to  steal  some 
sign  so  that  they  may  "cross"  the  enemy.  In  the 
language  of  the  Big  Leagues  it  is  "signs,"  never 
"signals."  And  in  conclusion  I  reiterate  my 
former  sentiments  that  all  is  fair  in  love,  war  and 
baseball  except  stealing  signs  dishonestly. 


VIII 
Umpires  and  Close  Decisions 

Ballplayers  and  Umpires  are  Regarded  by  the  Fans  as 
Natural  Enemies,  and  the  Fans  Are  about  Right — 
Types  of  Arbiters  and  how  the  Players  Treat  them 
—"Silk"  O'Loughlin,  "Hank"  O'Day,  "Tim" 
Hurst ,  "Bob"  Emslie,  and  Others,  and  Close  Ones 
they  have  Called — Also  Some  Narrow  Escapes 
which  have  Followed. 

WHEN  the  Giants  were  swinging  through 
the  West  in  1911  on  the  final  trip,  the 
club  played  three  games  in  Pittsburg,  with  the 
pennant  at  that  time  only  a  possibility  more  or 
less  remote.  The  Pirates  still  had  a  chance,  and 
they  were  fighting  hard  for  every  game,  espe- 
cially as  they  were  playing  on  their  home 
grounds. 

The  first  contest  of  the  series  was  on  Saturday 
afternoon  before  a  crowd  that  packed  the  gigantic 
"  161 


162  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

stands  which  surrounded  Forbes  Field.  The 
throng  wanted  to  see  the  Pirates  win  because 
they  were  the  Pirates,  and  the  Giants  beaten 
because  they  were  the  Giants,  and  were  sticking 
their  heads  up  above  the  other  clubs  in  the  race. 
I  always  think  of  the  horse  show  when  I  play  in 
Pittsburg,  for  they  have  the  diamond  horse-shoe 
of  boxes  there,  you  know.  No;  I  'm  wrong — 
it 's  at  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House  they  have 
the  diamond  horse-shoe.  Any  way,  the  diamond 
horse-shoe  of  boxes  was  doing  business  at  Forbes 
Field  that  Saturday  afternoon. 

This  story  is  going  to  be  about  umpires,  but  the 
reader  who  has  never  seen  the  Forbes  Field  folks 
must  get  the  atmosphere  before  I  let  the  yarn  into 
the  block.  Once,  on  a  bright,  sunny  day  there, 
I  muffed  fly  after  fly  because  the  glint  of  Sol's 
rays  on  the  diamonds  blinded  me.  Always  now 
I  wear  smoked  glasses.  "Josh"  Devore  is  so 
afraid  that  he  will  lose  social  caste  when  he  goes 
to  Pittsburg  that  he  gets  his  finger-nails  manicured 
before  he  will  appear  on  the  field.  And  the  lady 
who  treated  him  one  day  polished  them  to  such 
an  ultimate  glossiness  that  the  sun  flashed  on 
them,  and  he  dropped  two  flies  in  left  field. 


Umpires  and  Close  Decisions     163 

"Look  here,  Josh,"  warned  McG raw  after  the 
game,  "I  hire  you  to  play  ball  and  not  to  lead 
cotillions.  Get  some  pumice  stone  and  rub  it  on 
your  finger-nails  and  cut  out  those  John  Drew 
manicures  after  this." 

This  crowd  is  worse  after  umpires  than  the 
residents  of  the  bleachers.  The  game  on  that 
Saturday  worked  out  into  a  pitchers'  battle 
between  Marty  O'Toole,  the  expensive  exponent 
of  the  spit  ball,  and  "Rube"  Marquard,  the  great 
left-hander.  Half  of  "Who's  Who  in  Pittsburg" 
had  already  split  white  gloves  applauding  when, 
along  about  the  fourth  or  fifth  inning,  Fred  Clarke 
got  as  far  as  third  base  with  one  out.  The  score 
was  nothing  for  either  side  as  yet,  and  of  such  a 
delicate  nature  was  the  contest  that  one  run  was 
likely  to  decide  it. 

"Hans"  Wagner,  the  peerless,  and  the  pride 
of  Pittsburg,  was  at  the  bat.  He  pushed  a  long 
fly  to  Murray  in  right  field,  and  John  caught  it 
and  threw  the  ball  home.  Clarke  and  the  ball 
arrived  almost  simultaneously.  There  was  a 
slide,  a  jumble  of  players,  and  a  small  cloud 
of  dust  blew  away  from  the  home  plate. 

"Ye 're  out!"  bawled  Mr.  Brennan,  the   um- 


164  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

pire,  jerking  his  thumb  over  his  shoulder  with  a 
conclusiveness  that  forbade  argument.  Clarke 
jumped  up  and  stretched  his  hands  four  feet 
apart,  for  he  recognizes  no  conclusiveness  when 
"one  is  called  against  him." 

"  Safe !  that  much ! "  he  shouted  in  Brennan's  ear, 
showing  him  the  four-foot  margin  with  his  hands. 

There  was  a  roar  from  the  diamond  horse-shoe 
that,  if  it  could  have  been  canned  and  put  on  a 
phonograph,  would  have  made  any  one  his  fortune 
because  it  could  have  been  turned  on  to  accompany 
moving  pictures  of  lions  and  other  wild  beasts  to 
make  them  realistic. 

"Say,"  said  Clarke  to  Brennan,  "I  know  a 
pickpocket  who  looks  honest  compared  to  you, 
and  I  'd  rather  trust  my  watch  to  a  second-story 
worker." 

Brennan  was  dusting  off  the  plate  and  paid 
no  attention  to  him.  But  Clarke  continued  to 
snap  and  bark  at  the  umpire  as  he  brushed  him- 
self off,  referring  with  feeling  to  Mr.  Brennan's 
immediate  family,  and  weaving  into  his  talk  a 
sketch  of  the  umpire's  ancestors,  for  Clarke  is  a 
great  master  of  the  English  language  as  fed  to 
umpires. 


Umpires  and  Close  Decisions     165 

"Mr.  Clarke,"  said  Brennan,  turning  at  last, 
"you  were  out.  Now  beat  it  to  the  bench  before 
you  beat  it  to  the  clubhouse." 

Clarke  went  grumbling  and  all  the  afternoon 
was  after  Brennan  for  the  decision,  his  wrath 
increasing  because  the  Pirates  lost  the  game 
finally,  although  they  would  not  have  won  it 
had  they  been  given  that  decision.  And  the 
crowd  was  roaring  at  Brennan,  too,  throughout 
the  remainder  of  the  contest,  asking  him  pointed 
questions  about  his  habits  and  what  his  regular 
business  was. 

It  takes  a  man  with  nerve  to  make  a  decision 
like  that — one  that  could  be  called  either  way 
because  it  was  so  close — and  to  make  it  as  he  sees 
it,  which  happened  in  this  particular  case  to 
be  against  the  home  team. 

Many  times  have  I,  in  the  excitement  of  the 
moment,  protested  against  the  decision  of  an 
umpire,  but  fundamentally  I  know  that  the 
umpires  are  honest  and  are  doing  their  best,  as 
all  ball-players  are.  The  umpires  make,  mistakes 
and  the  players  make  errors.  Many  arbiters 
have  told  me  that  when  they  are  working  they 
seldom  know  what  inning  it  is  or  how  many  are 


1 66  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

out,  and  sometimes,  in  their  efforts  to  concentrate 
their  minds  on  their  decisions,  they  say  they  even 
forget  what  clubs  are  playing  and  which  is  the 
home  team. 

The  future  of  the  game  depends  on  the  umpire, 
for  his  honesty  must  not  be  questioned.  If  there 
is  a  breath  of  suspicion  against  a  man,  he  is  imme- 
diately let  go,  because  constant  repetition  of  such 
a  charge  would  result  in  baseball  going  the  way 
of  horse  racing  and  some  other  sports.  No 
scandal  can  creep  in  where  the  umpire  is  concerned, 
for  the  very  popularity  of  baseball  depends  on  its 
honesty. 

"The  only  good  umpire  is  a  dead  umpire," 
McGraw  has  declared  many  times  when  he  has 
been  disgruntled  over  some  decision. 

"I  think  they  're  all  dead  ones  in  this  League," 
replied  Devore  one  day,  "considering  the  decisions 
that  they  are  handing  me  down  there  at  second 
base.  Why,  I  had  that  bag  by  three  feet  and  he 
called  me  out." 

Many  baseball  fans  look  upon  an  umpire  as  a 
sort  of  necessary  evil  to  the  luxury  of  baseball, 
like  the  odor  that  follows  an  automobile. 

"Kill  him!    He  hasn't  got  any  friends!"    is 


Umpires  and  Close  Decisions     167 

an  expression  shouted  from  the  stands  time  and 
again  during  a  game. 

But  I  know  differently.  I  have  seen  umpires 
with  friends.  It  is  true  that  most  ball-players 
regard  umpires  as  their  natural  enemies,  as  a  boy 
does  a  school  teacher.  But  "Bill"  Klem  has 
friends  because  I  have  seen  him  with  them,  and 
besides  he  has  a  constant  companion,  which  is 
a  calabash  pipe.  And  "Billy"  Evans  of  the 
American  League  has  lots  of  friends.  And  most 
all  of  the  umpires  have  some  one  who  will  speak 
to  them  when  they  are  off  the  field. 

These  men  in  blue  travel  by  themselves,  live 
at  obscure  hotels  apart  from  those  at  which  the 
teams  stop,  and  slip  into  the  ball  parks  unobtrus- 
ively just  before  game  time.  They  never  make 
friends  with  ball-players  off  the  field  for  fear 
that  there  might  be  a  hint  of  scandal.  Seldom 
do  they  take  the  same  train  with  a  club  unless 
it  cannot  be  avoided.  "Hank"  O'Day,  the  vet- 
eran of  the  National  League  staff,  and  Brennan 
took  the  same  train  out  of  Chicago  with  the 
Giants  in  the  fall  of  1911  because  we  stopped  in 
Pittsburg  for  one  game,  and  they  had  to  be  there 
to  umpire.  It  was  the  only  available  means  of 


1 68  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

transportation.  But  they  stayed  by  themselves 
in  another  Pullman  until  some  one  told  them 
"Charley"  Faust,  the  official  jinx-killer  of  the 
Giants,  was  doing  his  stunt.  Then  they  both 
came  back  into  the  Giants'  car  and  for  the  first 
time  in  my  life  I  saw  "Hank"  O'Day  laugh. 
His  face  acted  as  if  it  was  n't  accustomed  to  the 
exercise  and  broke  all  in  funny  new  wrinkles, 
like  a  glove  when  you  put  it  on  for  the  first  time. 

There  are  several  types  of  umpires,  and  ball- 
players are  always  studying  the  species  to  find  out 
the  best  way  to  treat  each  man  to  get  the  most 
out  of  him.  There  are  autocrats  and  stubborn 
ones  and  good  fellows  and  weak-kneed  ones, 
almost  as  many  kinds  as  there  are  human  beings. 
The  autocrat  of  the  umpire  world  is  "Silk" 
O'Loughlin,  now  appearing  with  a  rival  show. 

"There  are  no  close  plays,"  says  "Silk."  "A 
man  is  always  out  or  safe,  or  it  is  a  ball  or  a 
strike,  and  the  umpire,  if  he  is  a  good  man  and 
knows  his  business,  is  always  right.  For  instance, 
I  am  always  right." 

He  refuses  to  let  the  players  discuss  a  decision 
with  him,  maintaining  that  there  is  never  any  room 
for  argument.  If  a  man  makes  any  talk  with  him, 


Umpires  and  Close  Decisions      169 

it  is  quick  to  the  shower  bath.  "Silk"  has  a 
voice  of  which  he  is  proud  and  declares  that  he 
shares  the  honors  with  Caruso  and  that  it  is  only 
his  profession  as  an  umpire  that  keeps  him  off 
the  grand-opera  circuit.  I  have  heard  a  lot  of 
American  League  ball-players  say  at  various  times 
that  they  wished  he  was  on  the  grand-opera 
circuit  or  some  more  calorific  circuit,  but  they  were 
mostly  prejudiced  at  those  moments  by  some 
sentiments  which  "Silk"  had  just  voiced  in  an 
official  capacity. 

As  is  well  known  in  baseball,  "Silk"  is  the 
inventor  of  "  Strike  Tuh! "  and  the  creased  trousers 
for  umpires.  I  have  heard  American  League 
players  declare  that  they  are  afraid  to  slide 
when  "Silk"  is  close  down  over  a  play  for  fear 
they  will  bump  up  against  his  trousers  and  cut 
themselves.  He  is  one  of  the  kind  of  umpires 
who  can  go  through  a  game  on  the  hottest  summer 
day,  running  about  the  bases,  and  still  keep  his 
collar  unwilted.  At  the  end  he  will  look  as  if  he 
were  dressed  for  an  afternoon  tea. 

Always  he  wears  on  his  right  hand,  which  is 
his  salary  or  decision  wing,  a  large  diamond  that 
sparkles  in  the  sunlight  every  time  he  calls  a  man 


170  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

out.  Many  American  League  players  assert  that 
he  would  rather  call  a  man  out  than  safe,  so  that 
he  can  shimmer  his  "cracked  ice, "  but  again  they 
are  usually  influenced  by  circumstances.  Such 
is  "Silk,"  well  named. 

Corresponding  to  him  in  the  National  League 
is  "Billy"  Klem.  He  always  wears  a  Norfolk 
jacket  because  he  thinks  it  more  stylish,  and 
perhaps  it  is,  and  he  refuses  to  don  a  wind  pad. 
Ever  notice  him  working  behind  the  bat?  But 
I  am  going  to  let  you  in  on  a  secret.  That  chest 
is  not  all  his  own.  Beneath  his  jacket  he  carries 
his  armor,  a  protector,  and  under  his  trousers' 
legs  are  shin  guards.  He  insists  that  all  players 
call  him  "Mr."  He  says  that  he  thinks  maybe 
soon  his  name  will  be  in  the  social  register. 

"Larry"  Doyle  thought  that  he  had  received 
the  raw  end  of  a  decision  at  second  base  one  day. 
He  ran  down  to  first,  where  Klem  had  retreated 
after  he  passed  his  judgment. 

"Say,  'Bill,'  "  exploded  "Larry,"  "that  man 
didn't  touch  the  bag — didn't  come  within  six 
feet  of  it." 

"Say,  Doyle,"  replied  Klem,  "when  you  talk 
to  me  call  me  'Mr.  Klem.'  " 


Umpires  and  Close  Decisions      171 

"But,  Mr.  Klem— "  amended  "Larry." 

Klem  hurriedly  drew  a  line  with  his  foot  as 
Doyle  approached  him  menacingly. 

"But  if  you  come  over  that  line,  you  're  out  of 
the  game,  Air.  Doyle,"  he  threatened. 

"All  right,"  answered  "Larry,"  letting  his 
pugilistic  attitude  evaporate  before  the  abrupt- 
ness of  Klem  as  the  mist  does  before  the  classic 
noonday  sun,  "but,  Mr.  Klem,  I  only  wanted  to 
ask  you  if  that  clock  in  centre  field  is  right  by 
your  watch,  because  I  know  everything  about 
you  is  right." 

"Larry"  went  back,  grinning  and  considering 
that  he  had  put  one  over  on  Klem — Mr.  Klem. 

For  a  long  time  "Johnny"  Evers  of  the  Chicago 
club  declared  that  Klem  owed  him  $5  on  a  bet 
he  had  lost  to  the  second  baseman  and  had 
neglected  to  pay.  Now  John,  when  he  was  right, 
could  make  almost  any  umpirical  goat  leap  from 
crag  to  crag  and  do  somersaults  en  route.  He 
kept  pestering  Klem  about  that  measly  $5  bet, 
not  in  an  obtrusive  way,  you  understand,  but  by 
such  delicate  methods  as  holding  up  five  fingers 
when  Klem  glanced  down  on  the  coaching  lines 
where  he  was  stationed,  or  by  writing  a  large  "5" 


172  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

in  the  dirt  at  the  home  plate  with  the  butt  of 
his  bat  as  he  came  up  when  Klem  was  umpiring 
on  balls  and  strikes,  or  by  counting  slowly  and 
casually  up  to  five  and  stopping  with  an  abrupt- 
ness that  could  not  be  misconstrued. 

One  day  John  let  his  temper  get  away  from  him 
and  bawled  Klem  out  in  his  most  approved  fashion. 

"Here's  your  five,  Mr.  Evers,"  said  Klem, 
handing  him  a  five  dollar  bill,  "and  now  you  are 
fined  $25." 

"And  it  was  worth  it,"  answered  Evers,  "to 
bawl  you  out." 

Next  comes  the  O'Day  type,  and  there  is 
only  one  of  them,  "Hank."  He  is  the  stubborn 
kind — or  perhaps  was  the  stubborn  kind,  would 
be  better,  as  he  is  now  a  manager.  He  is  bull- 
headed.  If  a  manager  gets  after  him  for  a 
decision,  he  is  likely  to  go  up  in  the  air  and,  not 
meaning  to  do  it,  call  close  ones  against  the  club 
that  has  made  the  kick,  for  it  must  be  remembered 
that  umpires  are  only  "poor  weak  mortals  after 
all."  O'Day  has  to  be  handled  with  shock 
absorbers.  McGraw  tries  to  do  it,  but  shock 
absorbers  do  not  fit  him  well,  and  the  first  thing 
that  usually  occurs  is  a  row. 


Umpires  and  Close  Decisions      173 

"Let  me  do  the  kicking,  boys,"  McGraw  always 
warns  his  players  before  a  contest  that  O'Day  is 
going  to  umpire.  He  does  not  want  to  see  any 
of  his  men  put  out  of  the  game. 

"Bill"  Dahlen  always  got  on  O' Day's  nerves 
by  calling  him  "Henry."  For  some  reason, 
O'Day  does  not  like  the  name,  and  "Bill"  Dahlen 
discovered  long  ago  the  most  irritating  inflection 
to  give  it  so  that  it  would  rasp  on  O'Day's 
ears.  He  does  not  mind  "Hank"  and  is  not  a 
"Mister"  umpire.  But  every  time  Dahlen  would 
call  O'Day  "Henry"  it  was  the  cold  shower  and 
the  civilian's  clothes  for  his. 

Dahlen  was  playing  in  St.  Louis  many  years 
ago  when  the  race  track  was  right  opposite  the 
ball  park.  "Bill"  had  a  preference  in  one  of 
the  later  races  one  day  and  was  anxious  to  get 
across  the  street  and  make  a  little  bet.  He  had 
obtained  a  leave  of  absence  on  two  preceding  days 
by  calling  O'Day  "Henry"  and  had  lost  money 
on  the  horses  he  had  selected  as  fleet  of  foot. 
But  this  last  time  he  had  a  "sure  thing"  and  was 
banking  on  some  positive  information  which  had 
been  slipped  to  him  by  a  friend  of  the  friend  of 
the  man  who  owned  the  winner,  and  "Bill" 


174  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

wanted  to  be  there.  Along  about  the  fifth  inning, 
"Bill"  figured  that  it  was  time  for  him  to  get  a 
start,  so  he  walked  up  to  O'Day  and  said: 

"Henry,  do  you  know  who  won  the  first  race?" 

"No,  and  you  won't  either,  Mr.  Dahlen," 
answered  "Hank."  "You  are  fined  $25,  and 
you  stay  here  and  play  the  game  out." 

Some  one  had  tipped  "  Hank  "  off.  And  the  sad- 
dest part  of  the  story  is  that  "Bill's"  horse  walked 
home,  and  he  could  not  get  a  bet  down  on  him. 

"First  time  it  ever  failed  to  work,"  groaned 
"Bill"  in  the  hotel  that  night,  "and  I  said  'Henry' 
in  my  meanest  way,  too." 

Most  clubs  try  to  keep  an  umpire  from  feeling 
hostile  toward  the  team  because,  even  if  he  means 
to  see  a  play  right,  he  is  likely  to  call  a  close  one 
against  his  enemies,  not  intending  to  be  dishonest. 
It  would  simply  mean  that  you  would  not  get 
any  close  ones  from  him,  and  the  close  ones  count. 
Some  umpires  can  be  reasoned  with,  and  a  good 
fair  protest  will  often  make  a  man  think  perhaps 
he  has  called  it  wrong,  and  he  will  give  you  the 
edge  on  the  next  decision.  A  player  must  un- 
derstand an  umpire  to  know  how  to  approach  him 
to  the  best  advantage.  O'Day  cannot  be  reasoned 


Umpires  and  Close  Decisions      175 

with.  It  is  as  dangerous  to  argue  with  him  as  it 
is  to  try  to  ascertain  how  much  gasoline  is  in  the 
tank  of  an  automobile  by  sticking  down  the 
lighted  end  of  a  cigar  or  a  cigarette. 

Emslie  will  listen  to  a  reasonable  argument. 
He  is  one  of  the  finest  umpires  that  ever  broke 
into  the  League,  I  think.  He  is  a  good  fellow. 
Far  be  it  from  me  to  be  disloyal  to  my  manager, 
for  I  think  that  he  is  the  greatest  that  ever  won  a 
pennant,  but  Emslie  put  one  over  on  McGraw 
in  1911  when  it  was  being  said  that  Emslie  was 
getting  so  old  he  could  not  see  a  play. 

"I  '11  bet,"  said  McGraw  to  him  one  day  after 
he  had  called  one  against  the  Giants,  "that  I  can 
put  a  baseball  and  an  orange  on  second  base, 
and  you  can't  tell  the  difference  standing  at  the 
home  plate,  Bob." 

Emslie  made  no  reply  right  then,  but  when  the 
eye  test  for  umpires  was  established  by  Mr.  Lynch, 
the  president  of  the  League,  "Bob"  passed  it  at 
the  head  of  the  list  and  then  turned  around  and 
went  up  to  Chatham  in  Ontario,  Canada,  and  made 
a  high  score  with  the  rifle  in  a  shooting  match  up 
there.  After  he  had  done  that,  he  was  umpiring 
at  the  Polo  Grounds  one  day. 


176  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

"Want  to  take  me  on  for  a  shooting  go,  John?" 
he  asked  McGraw  as  he  passed  him. 

"No,  Bob,  you're  all  right.  I  give  it  to  you," 
answered  McGraw,  who  had  long  forgotten  his 
slur  on  Emslie's  eyesight. 

Emslie  is  the  sort  of  umpire  who  rules  by  the 
bond  of  good  fellowship  rather  than  by  the 
voice  of  authority.  "  Old  Bob  "  has  one  "  groove  " 
and  it  is  a  personal  matter  about  which  he  is  very 
sensitive.  He  is  under  cover.  It  is  no  secret, 
or  I  would  not  give  way  on  him.  But  that 
luxuriant  growth  of  hair,  apparent,  comes  off  at 
night  like  his  collar  and  necktie.  It  used  to  be 
quite  the  fad  in  the  League  to  "josh"  "Bob" 
about  his  wig,  but  that  pastime  has  sort  of  died 
out  now  because  he  has  proven  himself  to  be  such 
a  good  fellow. 

I  had  to  laugh  to  myself,  and  not  boisterously, 
in  the  season  of  1911  when  Mr.  Lynch  appointed 
"Jack"  Doyle,  formerly  a  first  baseman  and  a 
hot-headed  player,  an  umpire  and  scheduled  him 
to  work  with  Emslie.  I  remembered  the  time 
several  seasons  ago  when  Doyle  took  offence  at 
one  of  "Bob's"  decisions  and  wrestled  him  all 
over  the  infield  trying  to  get  his  wig  off  and  show 


Umpires  and  Close  Decisions      177 

him  up  before  the  crowd.  And  then  Emslie  and 
he  worked  together  like  Damon  and  Pythias. 
This  business  makes  strange  bed-fellows. 

Emslie  was  umpiring  in  New  York  one  day 
in  the  season  of  1909,  when  the  Giants  were  play- 
ing St.  Louis.  A  wild  pitch  hit  Emslie  over  the 
heart  and  he  wilted  down,  unconscious.  The 
players  gathered  around  him,  and  Bresnahan, 
who  was  catching  for  St.  Louis  at  the  time, 
started  to  help  "Bob."  Suddenly  the  old  umpire 
came  to  and  began  to  fight  off  his  first-aid-to-the- 
injured  corps.  No  one  could  understand  his 
attitude  as  he  struggled  to  his  feet  and  strolled 
away  by  himself,  staggering  a  little  and  apparently 
dizzy.  At  last  he  came  back  and  gamely  finished 
the  business  of  the  day.  I  never  knew  why  he 
fought  with  the  men  who  were  trying  to  help 
him  until  several  weeks  later,  when  we  were 
playing  in  Pittsburg.  As  I  came  out  from  under 
the  stand  on  my  way  to  the  bench,  Emslie  hap- 
pened to  be  making  his  entrance  at  the  same 
time. 

"Say,  Matty,"  he  asked  me,  "that  time  in 
New  York  did  my  wig  come  off?  Did  Bresnahan 
take  my  wig  off?" 


178  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

"No,  Bob,"  I  replied,  "he  was  only  trying  to 
help  you." 

"I  thought  maybe  he  took  it  off  while  I  was 
down  and  out  and  showed  me  up  before  the 
crowd,"  he  apologized. 

"Listen,  Bob,"  I  said.  "I  don't  believe  there 
is  a  player  in  either  League  who  would  do  that, 
and,  if  any  youngster  tried  it  now,  he  would 
probably  be  licked." 

"I  'm  glad  to  hear  you  say  that,  Matty," 
answered  the  old  man,  as  he  picked  up  his  wind 
pad  and  prepared  to  go  to  work.  And  he  called 
more  bad  ones  on  me  that  day  than  he  ever  had 
in  his  life  before,  but  I  never  mentioned  the  wig 
to  liim. 

Most  umpires  declare  they  have  off  days  just 
like  players,  when  they  know  that  they  are 
making  mistakes  and  cannot  help  it.  If  a  pitcher 
of  Mordecai  Brown's  kind,  who  depends  largely  on 
his  control  for  his  effectiveness,  happens  to  run 
up  against  an  umpire  with  a  bad  day,  he  might 
just  as  well  go  back  to  the  bench.  Brown  is  a 
great  man  to  work  the  corners  of  the  plate, 
and  if  the  umpire  is  missing  strikes,  he  is  forced 
to  lay  the  ball  over  and  then  the  batters  whang  it 


Umpires  and  Close  Decisions     179 

out.  Johnstone  had  an  off  day  in  Chicago  in 
1911,  when  Brown  was  working. 

"What's  the  use  of  my  tryin'  to  pitch,  Jim," 
said  Brown,  throwing  down  his  glove  and  walking 
to  the  bench  disgusted,  "if  you  don't  know  a 
strike  when  you  see  one?" 

Sometimes  an  umpire  who  has  been  good 
will  go  into  a  long  slump  when  he  cannot  call 
things  right  and  knows  it.  Men  like  that  get  as 
discouraged  as  a  pitcher  who  goes  bad.  There 
used  to  be  one  in  the  National  League  who  was  a 
pretty  fair  umpire  when  he  started  and  seemed 
to  be  getting  along  fine  until  he  hit  one  of  those 
slumps.  Then  he  began  calling  everything  wrong 
and  knew  it.  At  last  he  quit,  and  the  next  time 
I  saw  him  was  in  Philadelphia  in  the  1911  world's 
series.  He  was  a  policeman. 

"Hello,  Matty,"  he  shouted  at  me  as  we  were 
going  into  Shibe  Park  for  the  first  game  there. 
"I  can  call  you  by  your  first  name  now,"  and  he 
waved  his  hand  real  friendly.  The  last  conver- 
sation I  had  with  that  fellow,  unless  my  recollec- 
tion fails  me  entirely,  was  anything  but  friendly. 

Umpires  have  told  me  that  sometimes  they  see 
a  play  one  way  and  call  it  another,  and,  as  soon 


i8o  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

as  the  decision  is  announced,  they  realize  that 
they  have  called  it  wrong.  This  malady  has 
put  more  than  one  umpire  out.  A  man  on  the 
National  League  staff  has  informed  me  since, 
that  he  called  a  hit  fair  that  was  palpably  two 
feet  foul  in  one  of  the  most  important  games 
ever  played  in  baseball,  when  he  saw  the  ball 
strike  on  foul  ground. 

"I  couldn't  help  saying  'Fair  ball,'"  declared 
this  man,  and  he  is  one  of  the  best  in  the  National 
League.  "Luckily,"  he  added,  "the  team  against 
which  the  decision  went  won  the  game." 

Many  players  assert  that  arbiters  hold  a 
personal  grudge  against  certain  men  who  have 
put  up  too  strenuous  kicks,  and  for  that  reason 
the  wise  ones  are  careful  how  they  talk  to  umpires 
of  this  sort.  Fred  Tenney  has  said  for  a  long  time 
that  Mr.  Klem  gives  him  a  shade  the  worst  of  it 
on  all  close  ones  because  he  had  a  run  in  with  that 
umpire  one  day  when  they  came  to  blows.  Tenney 
is  a  great  man  to  pick  out  the  good  ones  when  at 
the  bat,  and  Fred  says  that  if  he  is  up  with  a 
three  and  two  count  on  him  now,  Klem  is  likely 
to  call  the  next  one  a  strike  if  it  is  close,  not 
because  he  is  dishonest,  but  because  he  has  a 


Umpires  and  Close  Decisions     181 

certain  personal  prejudice  which  he  cannot  over- 
come. And  the  funny  part  about  it  is  that 
Tenney  does  not  hold  this  up  against  Klem. 

Humorous  incidents  are  always  occurring  in  con- 
nection with  umpires.  We  were  playing  in  Boston 
one  day  a  few  years  ago,  and  the  score  was  3  to  o 
against  the  Giants  in  the  ninth  inning.  Becker 
knocked  a  home  run  with  two  men  on  the  bases,  and 
it  tied  the  count.  With  men  on  first  and  third  bases 
and  one  out  in  the  last  half  of  the  ninth,  a  Boston 
batter  tapped  one  to  Merkle  which  I  thought  he 
trapped,  but  Johnstone,  the  umpire,  said  he  caught 
it  on  the  fly.  It  was  simplicity  itself  to  double 
the  runner  up  off  first  base  who  also  thought 
Merkle  had  trapped  the  ball  and  had  started  for 
second.  That  retired  the  side,  and  we  won  the 
game  in  the  twelfth  inning,  whereas  Boston  would 
have  taken  it  in  the  ninth  if  Johnstone  had  said 
the  ball  was  trapped  instead  of  caught  on  the  fly. 

It  was  a  very  hot  day,  and  those  extra  three 
innings  in  the  box  knocked  me  out.  I  was  sick 
for  a  week  with  stomach  trouble  afterwards  and 
could  not  pitch  in  Chicago,  where  we  made  our 
next  stop.  That  was  a  case  of  where  a  decision 
in  my  favor  "made  me  sick." 


1 82  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

"Tim"  Hurst,  the  old  American  League  umpire, 
was  one  of  the  most  picturesque  judges  that  ever 
spun  an  indicator.  He  was  the  sort  who  would 
take  a  player  at  his  word  and  fight  him  blow  for 
blow.  "Tim"  was  umpiring  in  Baltimore  in 
the  old  days  when  there  was  a  runner  on  first  base. 

"The  man  started  to  steal,"  says  "Tim." 
He  was  telling  the  story  only  the  other  day  in 
McGraw's  billiard  room  in  New  York,  and  it  is  bet- 
ter every  time  he  does  it.  "As  he  left  the  bag  he 
spiked  the  first  baseman  and  that  player  attempted 
to  trip  him.  The  second  baseman  blocked  the 
runner  and,  in  sliding  into  the  bag,  the  latter 
tried  to  spike  'Hugh*  Jennings,  who  was  playing 
shortstop  and  covering,  while  Jennings  sat  on 
him  to  knock  the  wind  out.  The  batter  hit 
Robinson,  who  was  catching,  on  the  hands  with 
his  bat  so  that  he  couldn't  throw,  and  'Robbie' 
trod  on  my  toes  with  his  spikes  and  shoved 
his  glove  into  my  face  so  that  I  could  n't  see  to 
give  the  decision.  It  was  one  of  the  hardest 
that  I  have  ever  been  called  upon  to  make." 

"What  did  you  do?"  I  asked  him. 

"I  punched  'Robbie'  in  the  ribs,  called  it  a 
foul  and  sent  the  runner  back,"  replied  "Tim." 


IX 

The  Game  that  Cost  a  Pennant 

The  Championship  of  the  National  League  was  De- 
cided in  1908  in  One  Game  between  the  Giants 
and  Cubs — Few  Fans  Know  that  it  Was  Mr. 
Brush  who  Induced  the  Disgruntled  New  York 
Players  to  Meet  Chicago — This  is  the  "Inside" 
Story  of  the  Famous  Game,  Including  "Fred" 
Merkle's  Part  in  the  Series  of  Events  which  Led 
up  to  it. 

HTHE  New  York  Giants  and  the  Chicago  Cubs 
*  played  a  game  at  the  Polo  Grounds  on 
October  8,  1908,  which  decided  the  championship 
of  the  National  League  in  one  afternoon,  which 
was  responsible  for  the  deaths  of  two  spectators, 
who  fell  from  the  elevated  railroad  structure 
overlooking  the  grounds,  which  made  Fred 
Merkle  famous  for  not  touching  second,  which 
caused  lifelong  friends  to  become  bitter  enemies, 
183 


184  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

and  which,  altogether,  was  the  most  dramatic 
and  important  contest  in  the  history  of  baseball. 
It  stands  out  from  every-day  events  like  the 
battle  of  Waterloo  and  the  assassination  of 
President  Lincoln.  It  was  a  baseball  tragedy 
from  a  New  York  point  of  view.  The  Cubs 
won  by  the  score  of  4  to  2. 

Behind  this  game  is  some  "inside"  history  that 
has  never  been  written.  Few  persons,  outside  of 
the  members  of  the  New  York  club,  know  that  it 
was  only  after  a  great  deal  of  consultation  the  game 
was  finally  played,  only  after  the  urging  of  John 
T.  Brush,  the  president  of  the  club.  The  Giants 
were  risking,  in  one  afternoon,  their  chances  of 
winning  the  pennant  and  the  world's  series — 
the  concentration  of  their  hopes  of  a  season — 
because  the  Cubs  claimed  the  right  on  a  technical- 
ity to  play  this  one  game  for  the  championship. 
Many  members  of  the  New  York  club  felt  that 
it  would  be  fighting  for  what  they  had  already 
won,  as  did  their  supporters.  This  made  bad 
feeling  between  the  teams  and  between  the  spec- 
tators, until  the  whole  dramatic  situation  leading 
up  to  the  famous  game  culminated  in  the  climax 
of  that  afternoon.  The  nerves  of  the  players 


The  Game  that  Cost  a  Pennant    185 

were  rasped  raw  with  the  strain,  and  the  town 
wore  a  fringe  of  nervous  prostration.  It  all 
burst  forth  in  the  game. 

Among  other  things,  Frank  Chance,  the  manager 
of  the  Cubs,  had  a  cartilage  in  his  neck  broken 
when  some  rooter  hit  him  with  a  handy  pop 
bottle,  several  spectators  hurt  one  another  when 
they  switched  from  conversational  to  fistic  ar- 
guments, large  portions  of  the  fence  at  the  Polo 
Grounds  were  broken  down  by  patrons  who  insisted 
on  gaining  entrance,  and  most  of  the  police  of 
New  York  were  present  to  keep  order.  They  had 
their  clubs  unlimbered,  too,  acting  more  as  if  on 
strike  duty  than  restraining  the  spectators  at 
a  pleasure  park.  Last  of  all,  that  night,  after  we 
had  lost  the  game,  the  report  filtered  through 
New  York  that  Fred  Merkle,  then  a  youngster 
and  around  whom  the  whole  situation  revolved, 
had  committed  suicide.  Of  course  it  was  not  true, 
for  Merkle  is  one  of  the  gamest  ball-players  that 
ever  lived. 

My  part  in  the  game  was  small.  I  started  to 
pitch  and  I  didn't  finish.  The  Cubs  beat  me 
because  I  never  had  less  on  the  ball  in  my  life. 
What  I  can't  understand  to  this  day  is  why  it 


i86  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

took  them  so  long  to  hit  me.  Frequently  it  has 
been  said  that  "Cy"  Seymour  started  the  Cubs 
on  their  victorious  way  and  lost  the  game,  because 
he  misjudged  a  long  hit  jostled  to  centre  field 
by  "Joe"  Tinker  at  the  beginning  of  the  third 
inning,  in  which  chapter  they  made  four  runs. 
The  hit  went  for  three  bases. 

Seymour,  playing  centre  field,  had  a  bad  back- 
ground against  which  to  judge  fly  balls  that  after- 
noon, facing  the  shadows  of  the  towering  stand, 
with  the  uncertain  horizon  formed  by  persons 
perched  on  the  roof.  A  baseball  writer  has  said 
that,  when  Tinker  came  to  the  bat  in  that  fatal 
inning,  I  turned  in  the  box  and  motioned  Sey- 
mour back,  and  instead  of  obeying  instructions 
he  crept  a  few  steps  closer  to  the  infield.  I  don't 
recall  giving  any  advice  to  "Cy,  "as  he  knew  the 
Chicago  batters  as  well  as  I  did  and  how  to  play 
for  them. 

Tinker,  with  his  long  bat,  swung  on  a  ball 
intended  to  be  a  low  curve  over  the  outside 
corner  of  the  plate,  but  it  failed  to  break  well. 
He  pushed  out  a  high  fly  to  centre  field,  and  I 
turned  with  the  ball  to  see  Seymour  take  a  couple 
of  steps  toward  the  diamond,  evidently  thinking 


The  Game  that  Cost  a  Pennant    187 

it  would  drop  somewhere  behind  second  base. 
He  appeared  to  be  uncertain  in  his  judgment 
of  the  hit  until  he  suddenly  turned  and  started 
to  run  back.  That  must  have  been  when  the  ball 
cleared  the  roof  of  the  stand  and  was  visible  above 
the  sky  line.  He  ran  wildly.  Once  he  turned, 
and  then  ran  on  again,  at  last  sticking  up  his 
hands  and  having  the  ball  fall  just  beyond  them. 
He  chased  it  and  picked  it  up,  but  Tinker  had 
reached  third  base  by  that  time.  If  he  had  let 
the  ball  roll  into  the  crowd  in  centre  field,  the 
Cub  could  have  made  only  two  bases  on  the  hit, 
according  to  the  ground  rules.  That  was  a  mis- 
take, but  it  made  little  difference  in  the  end. 

All  the  players,  both  the  Cubs  and  the  Giants, 
were  under  a  terrific  strain  that  day,  and  Seymour, 
in  his  anxiety  to  be  sure  to  catch  the  ball,  mis- 
judged it.  Did  you  ever  stand  out  in  the  field  at 
a  ball  park  with  thirty  thousand  crazy,  shouting 
fans  looking  at  you  and  watch  a  ball  climb  and 
climb  into  the  air  and  have  to  make  up  your  mind 
exactly  where  it  is  going  to  land  and  then  have  to 
be  there,  when  it  arrived,  to  greet  it,  realizing  all 
the  time  that  if  you  are  not  there  you  are  going  to 
be  everlastingly  roasted?  It  is  no  cure  for  ner- 


1 88  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

vous  diseases,  that  situation.  Probably  forty- 
nine  times  out  of  fifty  Seymour  would  have  caught 
the  fly. 

"I  misjudged  that  ball,"  said  "Cy"  to  me  in 
the  clubhouse  after  the  game.  "I'll  take  the 
blame  for  it." 

He  accepted  all  the  abuse  the  newspapers 
handed  him  without  a  murmur  and  I  don't  think 
myself  that  it  was  more  than  an  incident  in  the 
game.  1 11  try  to  show  later  in  this  story  where 
the  real  "break"  came. 

Just  one  mistake,  made  by  "Fred"  Merkle, 
resulted  in  this  play-off  game.  Several  newspaper 
men  have  called  September  23,  1908,  "Merkle 
Day,"  because  it  was  on  that  day  he  ran  to  the 
clubhouse  from  first  base  instead  of  by  way  of 
second,  when  "Al"  Bridwell  whacked  out  the  hit 
that  apparently  won  the  game  from  the  Cubs. 
Any  other  player  on  the  team  would  have  undoubt- 
edly done  the  same  thing  under  the  circumstances, 
as  the  custom  had  been  in  vogue  all  around  the 
circuit  during  the  season.  It  was  simply  Fred 
Merkle's  misfortune  to  have  been  on  first  base 
at  the  critical  moment.  The  situation  which 
gave  rise  to  the  incident  is  well  known  to  every 


The  Game  that  Cost  a  Pennant    189 

follower  of  baseball.  Merkle,  as  a  pinch  hitter, 
had  singled  with  two  out  in  the  ninth  inning 
and  the  score  tied,  sending  McCormick  from  first 
base  to  third.  "Al"  Bridwell  came  up  to  the 
bat  and  smashed  a  single  to  centre  field.  Mc- 
Cormick crossed  the  plate,  and  that,  according 
to  the  customs  of  the  League,  ended  the  game, 
so  Merkle  dug  for  the  clubhouse.  Evers  and 
Tinker  ran  through  the  crowd  which  had  flocked 
on  the  field  and  got  the  ball,  touching  second 
and  claiming  that  Merkle  had  been  forced  out 
there. 

Most  of  the  spectators  did  not  understand  the 
play,  as  Merkle  was  under  the  shower  bath 
when  the  alleged  put-out  was  made,  but  they 
started  after  "Hank"  O'Day,  the  umpire,  to  be 
on  the  safe  side.  He  made  a  speedy  departure 
under  the  grand-stand  and  the  crowd  got  the 
put-out  unassisted.  Finally,  while  somewhere 
near  Coogan's  Bluff,  he  called  Merkle  out  and  the 
score  a  tie.  When  the  boys  heard  this  in  the 
clubhouse,  they  laughed,  for  it  did  n't  seem  like 
a  situation  to  be  taken  seriously.  But  it  turned 
out  to  be  one  of  those  things  that  the  farther  it 
goes  the  more  serious  it  becomes. 


190  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

"Connie"  Mack,  the  manager  of  the  Athletics, 
says: 

"There  is  no  luck  in  Big  League  baseball. 
In  a  schedule  of  one  hundred  and  fifty-four  games, 
the  lucky  and  unlucky  plays  break  about  even, 
except  in  the  matter  of  injuries." 

But  Mack's  theory  does  not  include  a  schedule 
of  one  hundred  and  fifty-five  games,  with  the 
result  depending  on  the  one  hundred  and  fifty- 
fifth.  Chicago  had  a  lot  of  injured  athletes  early 
in  the  season  of  1908,  and  the  Giants  had  shot  out 
ahead  in  the  race  in  grand  style.  In  the  meantime 
the  Cubs'  cripples  began  to  recuperate,  and  that 
lamentable  event  on  September  23  seemed  to  be 
the  turning-point  in  the  Giants'  fortunes. 

Almost  within  a  week  afterwards,  Bresnahan 
had  an  attack  of  sciatic  rheumatism  and  "Mike" 
Donlin  was  limping  about  the  outfield,  leading  a 
great  case  of  "Charley  horse."  Tenney  was  band- 
aged from  his  waist  down  and  should  have  been 
wearing  crutches  instead  of  playing  first  base  on 
a  Big  League  club.  Doyle  was  badly  spiked 
and  in  the  hospital.  McGraw's  daily  greeting 
to  his  athletes  when  he  came  to  the  park 
was: 


The  Game  that  Cost  a  Pennant  191 

"How  are  the  cripples?  Any  more  to  add  to 
the  list  of  identified  dead  to-day?  " 

Merkle  moped.  He  lost  flesh,  and  time  after 
time  begged  McGraw  to  send  him  to  a  minor 
league  or  to  turn  him  loose  altogether. 

"  It  was  n't  your  fault,"  \ras  the  regular  response 
of  the  manager  who  makes  it  a  habit  to  stand  by 
his  men. 

We  played  on  with  the  cripples,  many  double- 
headers  costing  the  pitchers  extra  effort,  and  Mc- 
Graw not  daring  to  take  a  chance  on  losing  a  game 
if  there  were  any  opportunity  to  win  it.  He 
could  not  rest  any  of  his  men.  Merkle  lost  weight 
and  seldom  spoke  to  the  other  players  as  the  Cubs 
crept  up  on  us  day  after  day  and  more  men  were 
hurt.  He  felt  that  he  was  responsible  for  this 
change  in  the  luck  of  the  club.  None  of  the 
players  felt  this  way  toward  him,  and  many  tried 
to  cheer  him  up,  but  he  was  inconsolable.  The  team 
went  over  to  Philadelphia,  and  Coveleski,  the 
pitcher  we  later  drove  out  of  the  League,  beat  us 
three  times,  winning  the  last  game  by  the  scantiest 
of  margins.  The  result  of  that  series  left  us  three 
to  play  with  Boston  to  tie  the  Cubs  if  they  won 
from  Pittsburg  the  next  day,  Sunday.  If  the 


192  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

Pirates  had  taken  that  Sunday  game,  it  would 
have  given  them  the  pennant.  We  returned  to 
New  York  on  Saturday  night  very  much  down- 
hearted. 

"Lose  me.  I  'm  the  jinx,"  Merkle  begged 
McGraw  that  night. 

"You  stick,"  replied  the  manager. 

While  we  had  been  losing,  the  Cubs  had  been 
coming  fast.  It  seemed  as  if  they  could  not  drop 
a  game.  At  last  Cincinnati  beat  them  one, 
which  was  the  only  thing  that  made  the  famous 
season  tie  possible.  There  is  an  interesting 
anecdote  connected  with  that  Cincinnati  contest 
which  goes  to  prove  the  honesty  of  baseball. 
Two  of  the  closest  friends  in  the  game  are  "Hans" 
Lobert,  then  with  the  Reds,  and  Overall,  the 
former  Chicago  pitcher.  It  looked  as  if  Chicago 
had  the  important  game  won  up  to  the  ninth 
inning  when  Lobert  came  to  the  bat  with  two  men 
out  and  two  on  the  bases.  Here  he  had  a  chance 
to  overcome  the  lead  of  one  run  which  the  Cubs 
had  gained,  and  win  the  contest  for  the  home  club, 
but  he  would  beat  his  best  friend  and  maybe 
put  the  Cubs  out  of  the  running  for  the  pennant. 

Lobert  had  two  balls  and  two  strikes  when  he 


The  Game  that  Cost  a  Pennant  193 

smashed  the  next  pitch  to  center  field,  scoring 
both  the  base  runners.  The  hit  came  near 
beating  the  Cubs  out  of  the  championship. 
It  would  have  if  we  had  taken  one  of  those  close 
games  against  Philadelphia.  Lobert  was  broken- 
hearted over  his  hit,  for  he  wanted  the  Cubs  to 
win.  On  his  way  to  the  clubhouse,  he  walked 
with  Overall,  the  two  striding  side  by  side  like  a 
couple  of  mourners. 

"I'm  sorry,  'Orvie,'  "  said  Lobert.  "I  would 
not  have  made  that  hit  for  my  year's  salary 
if  I  could  have  helped  it." 

"That  fs  all  right,  'Hans,'"  returned  Overall. 
"It 's  all  part  of  the  game." 

Next  came  the  famous  game  in  Chicago  on 
Sunday  between  the  Cubs  and  the  Pittsburg 
Pirates,  when  a  victory  for  the  latter  club  would 
have  meant  the  pennant  and  the  big  game  would 
never  have  been  played.  Ten  thousand  persons 
crowded  into  the  Polo  Grounds  that  Sunday 
afternoon  and  watched  a  little  electric  score 
board  which  showed  the  plays  as  made  in  Chicago. 
For  the  first  time  in  my  life  I  heard  a  New  York 
crowd  cheering  the  Cubs  with  great  fervor,  for 
on  their  victory  hung  our  only  chances  of  ultimate 


194  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

success.  The  same  man  who  was  shouting  himself 
hoarse  for  the  Cubs  that  afternoon  was  for  taking 
a  vote  on  the  desirability  of  poisoning  the  whole 
Chicago  team  on  the  following  Thursday.  Even 
the  New  York  players  were  rooting  for  the  Cubs. 

The  Chicago  team  at  last  won  the  game  when 
Clarke  was  called  out  at  third  base  on  a  close 
play,  late  in  the  contest.  With  the  decision,  the 
Pirates'  last  chance  went  glimmering.  The 
Giants  now  had  three  games  to  win  from  Boston 
on  Monday,  Tuesday  and  Wednesday,  to  make  the 
deciding  game  on  Thursday  necessary.  We  won 
those,  and  the  stage  was  cleared  for  the  big  number. 

The  National  Commission  gave  the  New  York 
club  the  option  of  playing  three  games  out  of  five 
for  the  championship  or  risking  it  all  on  one 
contest.  As  more  than  half  of  the  club  was 
tottering  on  the  brink  of  the  hospital,  it  was 
decided  that  all  hope  should  be  hung  on  one  game. 
By  this  time,  Merkle  had  lost  twenty  pounds, 
and  his  eyes  were  hollow  and  his  cheeks  sunken. 
The  newspapers  showed  him  no  mercy,  and  the 
fans  never  failed  to  criticise  and  hiss  him  when  he 
appeared  on  the  field.  He  stuck  to  it  and  showed 
up  in  the  ball  park  every  day,  putting  on  his 


The  Game  that  Cost  a  Pennant  195 

uniform  and  practising.  It  was  a  game  thing  to 
do.  A  lot  of  men,  under  the  same  fire,  would  have 
quit  cold.  McGraw  was  with  him  all  the  way. 

But  it  was  not  until  after  considerable  discussion 
that  it  was  decided  to  play  that  game.  All  the  men 
felt  disgruntled  because  they  believed  they  would 
be  playing  for  something  they  had  already  won. 
Even  McGraw  was  so  wrought  up,  he  said  in  the 
clubhouse  the  night  before  the  game: 

"I  don't  care  whether  you  fellows  play  this 
game  or  not.  You  can  take  a  vote." 

A  vote  was  taken,  and  the  players  were  not 
unanimous,  some  protesting  it  ought  to  be  put 
up  to  the  League  directors  so  that,  if  they  wanted 
to  rob  the  team  of  a  pennant,  they  would  have 
to  take  the  blame.  Others  insisted  it  would  look 
like  quitting,  and  it  was  finally  decided  to  appoint 
a  committee  to  call  upon  Mr.  Brush,  the  president 
of  the  club,  who  was  ill  in  bed  in  the  Lambs  club 
at  the  time.  Devlin,  Bresnahan,  Donlin,  Tenney, 
and  I  were  on  that  committee. 

"Mr.  Brush,"  I  said  to  my  employer,  having 
been  appointed  the  spokesman,  "McGraw  has 
left  it  up  to  us  to  decide  whether  we  shall  meet 
the  Chicago  team  for  the  championship  of  the 


196  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

National  League  to-morrow.  A  lot  of  the  boys 
do  not  believe  we  ought  to  be  forced  to  play  over 
again  for  something  we  have  already  won,  so 
the  players  have  appointed  this  committee  of 
five  to  consult  with  you  and  get  your  opinion  on 
the  subject.  What  we  decide  goes  with  them." 

Mr.  Brush  looked  surprised.  I  was  nervous, 
more  so  than  when  I  ana  in  the  box  with  three  on 
the  bases  and  "Joe"  Tinker  at  the  bat.  Bres- 
nahan  fumbled  with  his  hat,  and  Devlin  coughed. 
Tenney  leaned  more  heavily  on  his  cane,  and 
Donlin  blew  his  nose.  We  five  big  athletes 
were  embarrassed  in  the  presence  of  this  sick  man. 
Suddenly  it  struck  us  all  at  the  same  time  that 
the  game  would  have  to  be  played  to  keep  ourselves 
square  with  our  own  ideas  of  courage.  Even 
if  the  Cubs  had  claimed  it  on  a  technicality, 
even  if  we  had  really  won  the  pennant  once, 
that  game  had  to  be  played  now.  We  all  saw 
that,  and  it  was  this  thin,  ill  man  in  bed  who 
made  us  see  it  even  before  he  had  said  a  word. 
It  was  the  expression  on  his  face.  It  seemed  to 
say,  "And  I  had  confidence  in  you,  boys,  to  do 
the  right  thing." 

"I'm  going  to  leave  it  to  you,"  he  answered. 


The  Game  that  Cost  a  Pennant    197 

"You  boys  can  play  the  game  or  put  it  up  to  the 
directors  of  the  League  to  decide  as  you  want. 
But  I  should  n't  think  you  would  stop  now  after 
making  all  this  fight." 

The  committee  called  an  executive  session, 
and  we  all  thought  of  the  crowd  of  fans  looking 
forward  to  the  game  and  of  what  the  newspapers 
would  say  if  we  refused  to  play  it  and  of  Mr.  Brush 
lying  there,  the  man  who  wanted  us  to  play, 
and  it  was  rapidly  and  unanimously  decided 
to  imitate  "Steve"  Brodie  and  take  a  chance. 

"We  '11  play,"  I  said  to  Mr.  Brush. 

"I'm  glad,"  he  answered.  "And,  say,  boys," 
he  added,  as  we  started  to  file  out,  "I  want  to 
tell  you  something.  Win  or  lose,  I  'm  going  to 
give  the  players  a  bonus  of  $10,000." 

That  night  was  a  wild  one  in  New  York.  The 
air  crackled  with  excitement  and  baseball.  I 
went  home,  but  could  n't  sleep  for  I  live  near  the 
Polo  Grounds,  and  the  crowd  began  to  gather  there 
early  in  the  evening  of  the  day  before  the  game 
to  be  ready  for  the  opening  of  the  gates  the  next 
morning.  They  tooted  horns  all  night,  and  were 
never  still.  When  I  reported  at  the  ball  park, 
the  gates  had  been  closed  by  order  of  the  National 


198  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

Commission,  but  the  streets  for  blocks  around  the 
Polo  Grounds  were  jammed  with  persons  fighting 
to  get  to  the  entrances. 

The  players  in  the  clubhouse  had  little  to  say 
to  one  another,  but,  after  the  bandages  were 
adjusted,  McGraw  called  his  men  around  him 
and  said: 

"Chance  will  probably  pitch  Pfiester  or  Brown. 
If  Pfiester  works  there  is  no  use  trying  to  steal. 
He  won't  give  you  any  lead.  The  right-handed 
batters  ought  to  wait  him  out  and  the  left-handers 
hit  him  when  he  gets  in  a  hole.  Matty  is  going 
to  pitch  for  us." 

Pfiester  is  a  left-hand  pitcher  who  watches  the 
bases  closely. 

Merkle  had  reported  at  the  clubhouse  as 
usual  and  had  put  on  his  uniform.  He  hung  on 
the  edge  of  the  group  as  McGraw  spoke,  and 
then  we  all  went  to  the  field.  It  was  hard  for  us 
to  play  that  game  with  the  crowd  which  was  there, 
but  harder  for  the  Cubs.  In  one  place,  the  fence 
was  broken  down,  and  some  employees  were 
playing  a  stream  of  water  from  a  fire  hose  on  the 
cavity  to  keep  the  crowd  back.  Many  preferred 
a  ducking  to  missing  the  game  and  ran  through 


The  Game  that  Cost  a  Pennant   199 

the  stream  to  the  lines  around  the  field.  A  string 
of  fans  recklessly  straddled  the  roof  of  the  old 
grand-stand. 

Every  once  in  a  while  some  group  would  break 
through  the  restraining  ropes  and  scurry  across 
the  diamond  to  what  appeared  to  be  a  better 
point  of  vantage.  This  would  let  a  throng  loose 
which  hurried  one  way  and  another  and  mixed 
in  with  the  players.  More  police  had  to  be 
summoned.  As  I  watched  that  half -wild  multi- 
tude before  the  contest,  I  could  think  of  three  or 
four  things  I  would  rather  do  than  umpire  the  game. 

I  had  rested  my  arm  four  days,  not  having 
pitched  in  the  Boston  series,  and  I  felt  that  it 
should  be  in  pretty  good  condition.  Before  that 
respite,  I  had  been  in  nine  out  of  fifteen  games. 
But  as  I  started  to  warm  up,  the  ball  refused  to 
break.  I.  could  n't  get  anything  on  it. 

"What 's  the  matter,  Rog?"  I  asked  Bresnahan. 
"They  won't  break  for  me." 

"It  '11  come  as  you  start  to  work,"  he  replied, 
although  I  could  see  that  he,  too,  was  worried. 

John  M.  Ward,  the  old  ball-player  and  now  one 
of  the  owners  of  the  Boston  National  League  club, 
has  told  me  since  that,  after  working  almost  every 


200  Pitching  in  a  Finch 

day  as  I  had  been  doing,  it  does  a  pitcher's  arm  no 
good  to  lay  off  for  three  or  four  days.  Only  a 
week  or  ten  days  will  accomplish  any  results.  It 
would  have  been  better  for  me  to  continue  to 
work  as  often  as  I  had  been  doing,  for  the  short 
rest  only  seemed  to  deaden  my  arm. 

The  crowd  that  day  was  inflammable.  The 
players  caught  this  incendiary  spirit.  McGinnity, 
batting  out  to  our  infield  in  practice,  insisted  on 
driving  Chance  away  from  the  plate  before  the 
Cubs'  leader  thought  his  team  had  had  its  full 
share  of  the  batting  rehearsal.  "Joe"  shoved 
him  a  little,  and  in  a  minute  fists  were  flying, 
although  Chance  and  McGinnity  are  very  good 
friends  off  the  field. 

Fights  immediately  started  all  around  in  the 
stands.  I  remember  seeing  two  men  roll  from 
the  top  to  the  bottom  of  the  right-field  bleachers, 
over  the  heads  of  the  rest  of  the  spectators. 
And  they  were  yanked  to  their  feet  and  run  out 
of  the  park  by  the  police. 

"Too  bad,"  I  said  to  Bresnahan,  nodding  my 
head  toward  the  departing  belligerents,  "they 
couldn't  have  waited  until  they  saw  the  game, 
anyway.  I  '11  bet  they  stood  outside  the  park 


The  Game  that  Cost  a  Pennant  201 

all  night  to  get  in,  only  to  be  run  out  before  it 
started." 

I  forgot  the  crowd,  forgot  the  fights,  and  did  n't 
hear  the  howling  after  the  game  started.  I 
knew  only  one  thing,  and  that  was  my  curved  ball 
would  n't  break  for  me.  It  surprised  me  that 
the  Cubs  did  n't  hit  it  far,  right  away,  but  two  of 
them  fanned  in  the  first  inning  and  Herzog  threw 
out  Evers.  Then  came  our  first  time  at  bat. 
Pfiester  was  plainly  nervous  and  hit  Tenney. 
Herzog  walked  and  Bresnahan  fanned  out,  Herzog 
being  doubled  up  at  second  because  he  tried  to 
advance  on  a  short  passed  ball.  "Mike"  Donlin 
whisked  a  double  to  right  field  and  Tenney 
counted. 

For  the  first  time  in  almost  a  month,  Merkle 
smiled.  He  was  drawn  up  in  the  corner  of  the 
bench,  pulling  away  from  the  rest  of  us  as  if  he 
had  some  contagious  disease  and  was  quarantined. 
For  a  minute  it  looked  as  if  we  had  them  going. 
Chance  yanked  Pfiester  out  of  the  box  with  him 
protesting  that  he  had  been  robbed  on  the  decisions 
on  balls  and  strikes.  Brown  was  brought  into 
the  game  and  fanned  Devlin.  That  ended  the 
inning. 


2O2  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

We  never  had  a  chance  against  Brown.  His 
curve  was  breaking  sharply,  and  his  control  was 
microscopic.  We  went  back  to  the  field  in  the 
second  with  that  one  run  lead.  Chance  made 
the  first  hit  of  the  game  off  me  in  the  second, 
but  I  caught  him  sleeping  at  first  base,  according 
to  Klem's  decision.  There  was  a  kick,  and  Hofman, 
joining  in  the  chorus  of  protests,  was  sent  to  the 
clubhouse. 

Tinker  started  the  third  with  that  memorable 
triple  which  gave  the  Cubs  their  chance.  I 
couldn't  make  my  curve  break.  I  didn't  have 
anything  on  the  ball. 

"Rog,"  I  said  to  Bresnahan,  "I  haven't  got 
anything  to-day." 

"Keep  at  it,  Matty,"  he  replied.  "We  '11  get 
them  all  right." 

I  looked  in  at  the  bench,  and  McGraw  signalled 
me  to  go  on  pitching.  Kling  singled  and  scored 
Tinker.  Brown  sacrificed,  sending  Kling  to 
second,  and  Sheckard  flied  out  to  Seymour,  Kling 
being  held  on  second  base.  I  lost  Evers,  because  I 
was  afraid  to  put  the  ball  over  the  plate  for  him, 
and  he  walked.  Two  were  out  now,  and  we  had 
yet  a  chance  to  win  the  game  as  the  score  was 


The  Game  that  Cost  a  Pennant  203 

only  tied.  But  Schulte  doubled,  and  Kling  scored, 
leaving  men  on  second  and  third  bases.  Still 
we  had  a  Mongolian's  chance  with  them  only  one 
run  ahead  of  us.  Frank  Chance,  with  his  under  jaw 
set  like  the  fender  on  a  trolley  car,  caught  a  curved 
ball  over  the  inside  corner  of  the  plate  and  pushed 
it  to  right  field  for  two  bases.  That  was  the 
most  remarkable  batting  performance  I  have 
ever  witnessed  since  I  have  been  in  the  Big  Leagues. 
A  right-handed  hitter  naturally  slaps  a  ball  over 
the  outside  edge  of  the  plate  to  right  field,  but 
Chance  pushed  this  one,  on  the  inside,  with  the 
handle  of  his  bat,  just  over  Tenney's  hands 
and  on  into  the  crowd.  The  hit  scored  Evers  and 
Schulte  and  dissolved  the  game  right  there. 
It  was  the  "break."  Steinfeldt  fanned. 

None  of  the  players  spoke  to  one  another  as 
they  went  to  the  bench.  Even  McGraw  was 
silent.  We  knew  it  was  gone.  Merkle  was  drawn 
up  behind  the  water  cooler.  Once  he  said: 

"It  was  my  fault,  boys." 

No  one  answered  him.  Inning  after  inning, 
our  batters  were  mowed  down  by  the  great  pitching 
of  Brown,  who  was  never  better.  His  control 
of  his  curved  ball  was  marvellous,  and  he  had  all 


204  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

his  speed.  As  the  innings  dragged  by,  the  spec- 
tators lost  heart,  and  the  cowbells  ceased  to  jingle, 
and  the  cheering  lost  its  resonant  ring.  It  was 
now  a  surly  growl. 

Then  the  seventh!  We  had  our  one  glimmer  of 
sunshine.  Devlin  started  with  a  single  to  centre, 
and  McCormick  shoved  a  drive  to  right  field. 
Recalling  that  Bridwell  was  more  or  less  of  a 
pinch  hitter,  Brown  passed  him  purposely  and 
Doyle  was  sent  to  the  bat  in  my  place.  As  he 
hobbled  to  the  plate  on  his  weak  foot,  said  McGraw: 

"Hit  one,  Larry." 

The  crowd  broke  into  cheers  again  and  was 
stamping  its  feet.  The  bases  were  full,  and  no 
one  was  out.  Then  Doyle  popped  up  a  weak 
foul  behind  the  catcher.  His  batting  eye  was  dim 
and  rusty  through  long  disuse.  Kling  went 
back  for  it,  and  some  one  threw  a  pop  bottle 
which  narrowly  missed  him,  and  another  scaled 
a  cushion.  But  Kling  kept  on  and  got  what  he 
went  after,  which  was  the  ball.  He  has  a  habit 
of  doing  that.  Tenney  flied  to  Schulte,  counting 
Devlin  on  the  catch,  and  Tinker  threw  out  Herzog. 
The  game  was  gone.  Never  again  did  we  have  a 
chance. 


The  Game  that  Cost  a  Pennant    205 

It  was  a  glum  lot  of  players  in  the  clubhouse. 
Merkle  came  up  to  McGraw  and  said: 

"Mac,  I  've  lost  you  one  penant.  Fire  me 
before  I  can  do  any  more  harm." 

"Fire  you?"  replied  McGraw.  "We  ran  the 
wrong  way  of  the  track  to-day.  That  's  all. 
Next  year  is  another  season,  and  do  you  think 
I  'm  going  to  let  you  go  after  the  gameness  you  Ve 
shown  through  all  this  abuse?  Why  you  're  the 
kind  of  a  guy  I  've  been  lookin'  for  many  years. 
I  could  use  a  carload  like  you.  Forget  this 
season  and  come  around  next  spring.  The  news- 
papers will  have  forgotten  it  all  then.  Good-by, 
boys."  And  he  slipped  out  of  the  clubhouse. 

"He  's  a  regular  guy,"  said  Merkle. 

Merkle  has  lived  down  that  failure  to  touch 
second  and  proved  himself  to  be  one  of  the  gamest 
players  that  ever  stood  in  a  diamond.  Many 
times  since  has  he  vindicated  himself.  He  is  a 
great  first  baseman  now,  and  McGraw  and  he  are 
close  friends.  That  is  the  "inside"  story  of  the 
most  important  game  ever  played  in  baseball 
and  Merkle's  connection  with  it. 


When  the  Teams  Are  in  Spring  Training 

The  Hardships  of  the  Preliminary  Practice  in  Limbering 
up  Muscles  and,  Reducing  Weight  for  the  Big  Cam- 
paign— How  a  Ball  Club  is  Whipped  into  Playing 
Shape— Trips  to  the  South  Not  the  Picnics  they  Seem  to 
Be — The  Battle  of  the  Bushers  to  Stay  in  the  Big 
Show — Making  a  Pitcher — Some  Fun  on  the  Side, 
including  the  Adventure  of  the  Turkish  Bath. 

OPRING  training!  The  words  probably  re- 
^  mind  the  reader  of  the  sunny  South  and  light 
exercise  and  good  food  and  rubs  and  other  luxuries, 
but  the  reader  perhaps  has  never  been  with  a  Big 
League  ball  club  when  it  is  getting  ready  to  go 
into  a  six  months'  campaign. 

All  I  can  ever  remember  after  a  training  trip 
is  taking  off  and  putting  on  a  uniform,  and  running 
around  the  ball  park  under  the  inspiration  of 
John  McGraw,  and  he  is  some  inspirer. 
206 


Teams  in  Spring  Training        207 

The  heavier  a  man  gets  through  the  winter, 
the  harder  the  routine  work  is  for  him,  and  a  few 
years  ago  I  almost  broke  down  and  cried  out  of 
sympathy  for  Otis  Crandall,  who  arrived  in  camp 
very  corpulent. 

"What  have  you  been  doing  this  winter,  Otie?" 
McGraw  asked  him  after  shaking  hands  in  greet- 
ing, "appearing  with  a  show  as  the  stout  lady? 
You  '11  have  to  take  a  lot  of  that  off. " 

"Taking  it  off"  meant  running  several  miles 
every  day  so  bundled  up  that  the  Indiana  agri- 
culturist looked  like  the  pictures  published  of 
"Old  Doc"  Cook  which  showed  him  discovering 
the  north  pole.  Ever  since,  CrandalTs  spring 
training,  like  charity,  has  begun  at  home,  and  he 
takes  exercise  night  and  morning  throughout  the 
winter,  so  that  when  he  comes  into  camp  his  weight 
will  be  somewhere  near  normal.  In  1911  he  had 
the  best  year  of  his  career.  He  is  the  type  of  man 
who  cannot  afford  to  carry  too  much  weight.  He 
is  stronger  when  he  is  slimmer. 

In  contrast  to  him  is  George  Wiltse,  who  maps 
out  a  training  course  with  the  idea  of  adding  several 
pounds,  as  he  is  better  with  all  the  real  weight  he 
can  put  on.  By  that  I  do  not  mean  any  fat. 


208  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

George  came  whirling  and  spinning  and  waltzing 
and  turkey-trotting  and  pirouetting  across  the 
field  at  Marlin  Springs,  Texas,  the  Giants'  spring 
training  headquarters,  one  day  in  the  spring  of 
1911,  developing  steps  that  would  have  ruled  him 
off  any  cotillion  floor  in  New  York  in  the  days  of 
the  ban  on  the  grizzly  bear  and  kindred  dances. 
Suddenly  he  dove  down  with  his  left  hand  and 
reached  as  far  as  he  could. 

"What's  that  one,  George?"  I  yelled  as  he 
passed  me. 

"Getting  ready  to  cover  first  base  on  a  slow 
hit,  Matty,"  he  replied,  and  was  off  on  another 
series  of  hand  springs  that  made  him  look  more  like 
a  contortionist  rehearsing  for  an  act  which  he  was 
going  to  take  out  for  the  "big  time"  than  a  ball- 
player getting  ready  for  the  season. 

But  perhaps  some  close  followers  of  baseball 
statistics  will  recall  a  game  that  Wiltse  took  from 
the  Cubs  in  1911  by  a  wonderful  one-hand  reaching 
catch  of  a  low  throw  to  first  base.  Two  Chicago 
runners  were  on  the  bags  at  the  time  and  the  loss 
of  that  throw  would  have  meant  that  they  both 
scored.  Wiltse  caught  the  ball,  and  it  made  the 
third  out,  and  the  Giants  won  the  game.  Thou- 


Teams  in  Spring  Training        209 

sands  of  fans  applauded  the  catch,  but  the  play 
was  not  the  result  of  the  exigencies  of  the  moment. 
It  was  the  outcome  of  forethought  used  months 
before. 

Spectators  at  ball  games  who  wonder  at  the 
marvellous  fielding  of  Wiltse  should  watch  him 
getting  ready  during  the  spring  season  at  Marlin. 
He  is  a  tireless  worker,  and  when  he  is  not  pitching 
he  is  doing  hand  springs  and  other  acrobatic 
acts  to  limber  up  all  his  muscles.  It  is  torture 
then,  but  it  pays  in  the  end. 

When  I  was  a  young  fellow  and  read  about  the 
Big  League  clubs  going  South,  I  used  to  think 
what  a  grand  life  that  must  be.  Riding  in  Pullmans, 
some  pleasant  exercise  which  did  not  entail  the 
responsibility  of  a  ball  game,  and  plenty  of  food, 
with  a  little  social  recreation,  were  all  parts  of  my 
dream.  A  young  ball-player  looks  on  his  first 
spring  training  trip  as  a  stage-struck  young  woman 
regards  the  theatre.  She  cannot  wait  for  her 
first  rehearsal,  and  she  thinks  only  of  the  lobster 
suppers  and  the  applause  and  the  lights  and  the 
life,  but  nowhere  in  her  dream  is  there  a  place  for 
the  raucous  voice  of  the  stage  manager  and  the 
long  jumps  of  "one  night  stands"  with  the 


210  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

loss  of  sleep  and  the  poor  meals  and  the  cold 
dressing  rooms.  As  actors  begin  to  dread  the 
drudgery  of  rehearsing,  so  do  baseball  men  detest 
the  drill  of  the  spring  training.  The  only  thing 
that  I  can  think  of  right  away  which  is  more 
tiresome  and  less  interesting  is  signal  practice 
with  a  college  football  team. 

About  the  time  that  the  sap  starts  up  in  the 
trees  and  the  young  man's  fancy  lightly  turns  to 
thoughts  of  love  and  baseball,  the  big  trek  starts. 
Five  hundred  ball-players,  attached  more  or  less 
firmly  to  sixteen  major  league  clubs,  spread  them- 
selves out  over  the  southern  part  of  the  United 
States,  from  Florida  to  California,  and  begin  to 
prepare  for  the  campaign  that  is  to  furnish  the 
answer  to  that  annual  question,  "Which  is  the 
best  baseball  club  in  the  world?" 

In  the  case  of  the  Giants,  McGraw,  with  a  flock 
of  youngsters,  has  already  arrived  when  the  older 
men  begin  to  drift  into  camp.  The  youngsters, 
who  have  come  from  the  bushes  and  realize 
that  this  is  their  one  big  chance  to  make  good, 
to  be  a  success  or  a  failure  in  their  chosen  profes- 
sion— in  short,  to  become  a  Big  Leaguer  or  go 
back  to  the  bushes  for  good — have  already  been 


Teams  in  Spring  Training       211 

working  for  ten  days  and  are  in  fair  shape.  They 
stare  at  the  regulars  as  the  veterans  straggle  in 
by  twos  and  threes,  and  McGraw  has  a  brief 
greeting  for  each.  He  could  use  a  rubber  stamp. 

"How  are  you,  Matty?  What  kind  of  shape 
are  you  in?  Let 's  see  you  in  a  uniform  at  nine 
o'clock  to-morrow  morning. " 

When  I  first  start  South,  for  the  spring  trip, 
after  shivering  through  a  New  York  winter,  I 
arouse  myself  to  some  enthusiasm  over  the 
prospect,  but  all  this  has  evaporated  after  listen- 
ing to  that  terse  speech  from  McGraw,  for  I 
know  what  it  means.  Nothing  looms  on  the  hori- 
zon but  the  hardest  five  weeks'  grind  in  the  world. 

The  next  day  the  practice  begins,  and  for  the 
first  time  in  five  months,  a  uniform  is  donned.  I 
usually  start  my  work  by  limbering  up  slowly,  and 
on  the  first  day  I  do  not  pitch  at  all.  With  several 
other  players,  I  help  to  form  a  large  circle  and  the 
time  is  spent  in  throwing  the  ball  at  impossible  and 
unreachable  points  in  the  anatomy.  The  man 
next  to  you  shoots  one  away  up  over  your  head 
and  the  next  one  at  your  feet  and  off  to  the  side 
while  he  is  looking  at  the  third  man  from  you. 
This  is  great  for  limbering  up,  but  the  loosening 


212  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

is  torture.  After  about  fifteen  minutes  of  that, 
the  winter-logged  player  goes  over  on  the  bench 
and  drops  down  exhausted.  But  does  he  stay 
there?  Not  if  McGraw  sees  him,  and  he  is  one 
of  the  busiest  watchers  I  have  ever  met. 

"Here,  Matty,"  he  will  shout,  "lead  this  squad 
three  times  around  the  park  and  be  careful  not 
to  cut  the  corners. " 

By  the  time  that  little  formality  is  finished,  a 
man's  tongue  is  hanging  out  and  he  goes  to  get  a 
drink  of  water.  The  spring  training  is  just  one 
darned  drink  after  another  and  still  the  player  is 
always  thirsty. 

After  three  hours  of  practice,  McGraw  may  say: 

"All  right,  Matty.  Go  back  to  the  hotel  and 
get  a  bath  and  a  rub  and  cut  it  out  for  to-day. " 

Or  he  may  remark: 

"You  're  looking  heavy  this  year.  Better  take 
another  little  workout  this  afternoon. " 

And  so  ends  the  first  day.  That  night  I  flex 
the  muscles  in  my  salary  wing  and  wonder  to 
myself  if  it  is  going  to  be  very  sore.  I  get  the 
answer  next  day.  And  what  always  makes  me 
maddest  is  that  the  fans  up  North  imagine  that  we 
are  having  some  kind  of  a  picnic  in  Marlin  Springs, 


I 

I 


f  * 


s| 

15 


Teams  in  Spring  Training       213 

Texas.  My  idea  of  no  setting  for  a  pleasure  party 
is  Marlin  Springs,  Texas. 

The  morning  of  the  second  day  is  always  a 
pleasant  occasion.  The  muscles  which  have 
remained  idle  so  long  begin  to  rebel  at  the  un- 
accustomed exercise,  and  the  players  are  as  pleasant 
as  a  flock  of  full-grown  grizzly  bears.  I  would  not 
be  a  waiter  for  a  ball  club  on  a  spring  tour  if  they 
offered  me  a  contract  with  a  salary  as  large  as  J.  P. 
Morgan's  income. 

Each  year  the  winter  kinks  seem  to  have  settled 
into  the  muscles  more  permanently  and  are  harder 
to  iron  out.  Of  course,  there  comes  a  last  time  for 
each  one  of  us  to  go  South,  and  every  season  I 
think,  on  the  morning  of  the  second  day,  when  I 
try  to  work  my  muscles,  that  this  one  is  my  last. 

The  bushers  lend  variety  to  the  life  in  a  spring 
camp.  Many  of  them  try  hard  to  "horn  in" 
with  the  men  who  have  made  good  as  Big  Leaguers. 
When  a  young  player  really  seems  to  want  to  know 
something,  any  of  the  older  men  will  gladly  help 
him,  but  the  trouble  with  most  of  them  is  that 
they  think  they  are  wonders  when  they  arrive. 

"How  do  you  hold  a  curve?"  a  young  fellow 
asked  me  last  spring. 


214  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

*    I  showed  him. 

"  Do  you  think  Hans  Wagner  is  as  good  as  Ty 
Cobb?"  he  asked  me  next. 

"Listen!"  I  answered.  "Did  you  come  down 
here  to  learn  to  play  ball  or  with  the  idea  that  you 
are  attending  some  sort  of  a  conversational 
soiree?" 

Many  recruits  think  that,  if  they  can  get 
friendly  with  the  veterans,  they  will  be  retained 
on  account  of  their  social  standing,  and  I  cannot 
"go"  young  ball-players  who  attempt  to  become 
the  bootblacks  for  the  old  ones. 

I  have  seen  many  a  youngster  ruin  himself,  even 
for  playing  in  the  minors,  through  his  too  vigorous 
efforts  to  make  good  under  the  large  tent.  He 
will  come  into  camp,  and  the  first  day  out  put 
everything  he  has  on  the  ball  to  show  the  manager 
"he  's  got  something. "  The  Giants  had  a  young 
pitcher  with  them  in  1911,  named  Nagle,  who  tried 
to  pick  up  the  pace,  on  the  first  day  in  camp, 
at  which  he  had  left  off  on  the  closing  day  of  the 
previous  year.  He  started  to  shoot  the  ball  over 
to  the  batters  with  big,  sharp  breaking  curves 
on  it.  He  had  not  been  South  three  days  before 
he  developed  a  sore  arm  that  required  a  sling  to 


Teams  in  Spring  Training        215 

help  him  carry  it  around,  and  he  never  was  able 
to  twirl  again  before  he  was  shunted  back  into  the 
lesser  leagues. 

But  hope  springs  eternal  in  the  breast  of  the 
bush  leaguer  in  the  spring,  and  many  a  young 
fellow,  when  he  gets  his  send-off  from  the  little, 
old  home  town,  with  the  local  band  playing  at 
the  station,  knows  that  the  next  time  the  populace 
of  that  place  hears  of  him,it  will  be  through  seeing 
his  name  in  the  headlines  of  the  New  York  papers. 
And  then  along  about  the  middle  of  April,  he 
comes  sneaking  back  into  the  old  burg,  crest- 
fallen and  disappointed.  There  are  a  lot  of  humor 
and  some  pathos  in  a  spring  training  trip.  Many 
a  busher  I  have  seen  go  back  who  has  tried  hard 
to  make  good  and  just  could  not,  and  I  have  felt 
sorry  for  him.  It  is  just  like  a  man  in  any  other 
business  getting  a  chance  at  a  better  job  than  the 
one  he  is  holding  and  not  being  big  enough  to  fit 
it.  It  is  the  one  time  that  opportunity  has  knocked, 
and  most  of  the  bush  leaguers  do  not  know  the 
combination  to  open  the  door,  and,  as  has  been 
pointed  out,  opportunity  was  never  charged  with 
picking  locks.  Many  are  called  in  the  spring, 
but  few  get  past.  Most  of  them  are  sincere  young 


216  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

fellows,  too,  trying  to  make  good,  and  I  have 
them  work  until  their  tongues  were  hanging  out 
and  the  perspiration  was  starting  all  over  them, 
only  to  hear  McGraw  say: 

"  I  'm  sorry,  but  you  will  have  to  go  back  again. 
I  Ve  let  you  out  to  Kankakee. " 

"Steve"  Evans,  who  now  plays  right  field  on 
the  St.  Louis  club,  was  South  with  the  Giants 
one  season  and  worked  hard  to  stick.  But  Mc- 
Graw had  a  lot  of  young  out-fielders,  and  some 
minor  league  magnate  from  Montreal  came  into 
camp  one  day  who  liked  "Steve's"  action.  Mc- 
Graw started  for  the  outfield  where  Evans  was 
chasing  flies  and  tried  to  get  to  "Steve,"  but 
every  time  the  manager  approached  him  with  the 
minor  league  man,  Evans  would  rush  for  a  ball 
on  another  corner  of  the  field,  and  he  became  sud- 
denly hard  of  hearing.  Finally  McGraw  abandoned 
the  chase  and  let  another  out-fielder  go  to  Montreal, 
retaining  Evans. 

"Say,  'Steve,'"  said  "Mac,"  that  night, 
"why  did  n't  you  come,  when  I  called  you  out  on 
the  field  there  this  afternoon?" 

"Because  I  could  hear  the  rattle  of  the  tin  can 
you  wanted  to  tie  to  me,  all  over  the  lot,"  replied 


Teams  in  Spring  Training        217 

Evans.  And  eventually,  by  that  subtle  dodging, 
he  landed  in  the  Big  League  under  Bresnahan  and 
has  made  good  out  there. 

I  believe  that  a  pitcher  by  profession  has  the 
hardest  time  of  any  of  the  specialists  who  go  into 
a  spring  camp.  His  work  is  of  a  more  routine 
nature  than  that  which  attaches  to  any  of  the 
other  branches  of  the  baseball  art.  It  is  nothing 
but  a  steady  grind. 

The  pitcher  goes  out  each  morning  and  gets  a 
catcher  with  a  big  mitt  and  a  loud  voice  and,  with 
a  couple  of  his  fellow  artists,  starts  to  warm  up 
with  this  slave-driver.  The  right  sort  of  a  catcher 
for  spring  rehearsing  is  never  satisfied  with  any- 
thing you  do.  I  never  try  to  throw  a  curve  for 
ten  days  at  least  after  I  get  South,  for  a  misplaced 
curve  early  in  the  season  may  give  a  man  a  sore 
arm  for  the  greater  part  of  the  summer,  and  Big 
League  clubs  are  not  paying  pitchers  for  wearing 
crippled  whips. 

After  warming  up  for  an  hour  or  so,  three  or  four 
pitchers  throw  slow  ones  to  a  batter  and  try  to  get 
the  ball  on  the  half  bounce  and  compete  as  to  the 
number  of  fumbles.  This  is  great  for  limbering 
up. 


2i 8  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

Then  comes  the  only  real  enjoyment  of  the  day. 
It  is  quick  in  passing,  like  a  piece  of  great  scenery 
viewed  out  of  the  window  of  a  railroad  coach 
going  sixty  miles  an  hour.  Each  afternoon  the 
regulars  play  the  Yannigans  (the  spring  name 
of  the  second  team)  a  game  of  six  innings,  and  each 
pitcher  has  a  chance  to  work  about  one  inning. 
The  batters  are  away  off  form  and  are  missing  the 
old  round-house  curve  by  two  feet  that  they  would 
hit  out  of  the  lot  in  mid-season.  This  makes  you 
think  for  a  few  minutes  that  you  are  a  good  pitcher. 
But  there  is  even  a  drawback  to  this  brief  bit  of 
enjoyment,  for  the  diamond  at  Marlin  is  skinned — 
that  is,  made  of  dirt,  although  it  is  billed  as  a 
grass  infield,  and  the  ball  gets  "wingy. "  Little 
pieces  of  the  cover  are  torn  loose  by  contact  with 
the  rough  dirt,  and  it  is  not  at  all  like  the  hard, 
smooth,  grass-stained  ball  that  is  prevalent  around 
the  circuit  in  mid-season.  Grass  seed  has  been 
planted  on  this  infield,  but  so  far,  like  a  lot  of 
bushers,  it  has  failed  to  make  good  its  promises. 

After  that  game  comes  the  inevitable  run  around 
the  park  which  has  been  a  headliner  in  spring 
training  ever  since  the  institution  was  discovered. 
A  story  is  told  of  "Cap"  Anson  and  his  famous 


Teams  in  Spring  Training        219 

old  White  Stockings.*  According  to  the  reports 
I  have  heard,  training  with  the  "Cap"  when  he 
was  right  was  no  bed  of  roses.  After  hours  of 
practice,  he  would  lead  the  men  in  long  runs,  and 
the  better  he  felt,  the  longer  the  runs.  One  hot 
day,  so  the  story  goes,  Anson  was  toiling  around 
the  park,  with  his  usual  determination,  at  the  head 
of  a  string  of  steaming,  sweating  players,  when 
"  Bill "  Dahlen,  a  clever  man  at  rinding  an  opening, 
discovered  a  loose  board  in  the  fence  on  the  back 
stretch,  pulled  it  off,  and  dived  through  the  hole. 
On  the  next  lap  two  more  tired  athletes  followed 
him,  and  at  last  the  whole  squad  was  on  the  other 
side  of  the  fence,  watching  their  leader  run  on 
tirelessly.  But  "Cap"  must  have  missed  the 
"plunk,  plunk"  of  the  footsteps  behind  him,  for 
he  looked  around  and  saw  that  his  players  were 
gone.  He  kept  grimly  on,  alone,  until  he  had 
finished,  and  then  he  pushed  his  red  face  through 
the  hole  in  the  fence  and  saw  his  men. 

"Your  turn  now,  boys,"  he  said,  and  while 
he  sat  in  the  grand-stand  as  the  sole  spectator,  he 
made  that  crowd  of  unfortunate  athletes  run 
around  the  track  twice  as  many  times  as  he  himself 
had  done. 


220  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

"Guess  I  won't  have  to  nail  up  that  hole  in  the 
fence,  boys,"  "Cap"  remarked  when  it  was  all 
over. 

Speaking  of  the  influence  of  catchers  on  pitchers 
during  the  training  trip,  there  is  the  well-known 
case  of  Wilbert  Robinson,  the  old  catcher,  and 
"Rube"  Marquard,  the  great  left-handed  pitcher 
of  the  Giants.  "Robbie"  devoted  himself  almost 
entirely  in  the  spring  of  1911  to  the  training  of 
the  then  erratic  "Rube,"  and  he  handed  back  to 
McGraw  at  the  end  of  the  rehearsal  the  man  who 
turned  out  to  be  the  premier  pitcher  of  his  League, 
according  to  the  official  figures,  and  figures  are  not 
in  the  habit  of  lying. 

"Robbie"  used  to  take  Marquard  off  into  some 
corner  every  day  and  talk  to  him  for  hours.  Draw 
up  close,  for  I  am  going  to  tell  you  the  secret  of 
how  Marquard  became  a  great  pitcher  and  that, 
too,  at  just  about  the  time  the  papers  were  men- 
tioning him  as  the  "$i  1,000  lemon, "  and  imploring 
McGraw  to  let  him  go  to  some  club  in  exchange  for 
a  good  capable  bat  boy. 

"Now  'Rube,'"  would  be  "Robbie's"  first  line 
in  the  daily  lecture,  "you  Ve  got  to  start  on  the 
first  ball  to  get  the  batter.  Always  have  some- 


Teams  in  Spring  Training        221 

thing  on  him  and  never  let  him  have  anything  on 
you.  This  is  the  prescription  for  a  great  pitcher. " 

One  of  the  worst  habits  of  Marquard's  early 
days  was  to  get  a  couple  of  strikes  on  a  batter  and 
then  let  up  until  he  got  himself  "into  a  hole" 
and  could  not  put  the  ball  over.  Robinson  by  his 
coaching  gave  him  the  confidence  he  lacked. 

"'Rube,'  you've  got  a  lot  of  stuff  to-day," 
"Robbie"  would  advise,  "but  don't  try  to  get  it 
all  on  the  ball.  Mix  it  with  a  little  control,  and 
it  will  make  a  great  blend.  Now,  this  guy  is  a 
high  ball  hitter.  Let 's  see  you  keep  it  low  for 
him.  He  waits,  so  you  will  have  to  get  it  over. " 

And  out  there  in  the  hot  Texas  sun,  with  much 
advice  and  lots  of  patience,  Wilbert  Robinson  was 
manufacturing  a  great  pitcher  out  of  the  raw 
material.  One  of  Marquard's  worst  faults,  when 
he  first  broke  into  the  League,  was  that  he  did  not 
know  the  batters  and  their  grooves,  and  these 
weaknesses  Robinson  drilled  into  his  head — not 
that  a  drill  was  required  to  insert  the  information. 
Robinson  was  the  coacher,  umpire,  catcher  and 
batter  rolled  into  one,  and  as  a  result  look  at  the 
"Rube." 

When    Marquard    began    to    wabble    a    little 


222  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

toward  the  end  of  1911  and  to  show  some  of  his 
old  shyness  while  the  club  was  on  its  last  tripJWest, 
Robinson  hurried  on  to  Chicago  and  worked  with 
him  for  two  days.  The  "Rube"  had  lost  the 
first  game  of  the  series  to  the  Cubs,  but  he  turned 
around  after  Robinson  joined  us  and  beat  them  to 
death  in  the  last  contest. 

Pitchers,  old  and  young,  are  always  trying  for 
new  curves  in  the  spring  practice,  and  out  of  the 
South,  wafted  over  the  wires  by  the  fertile  imagi- 
nations of  the  flotilla  of  correspondents,  drift 
tales  each  spring  of  the  "fish"  ball  and  the  new 
"hook"  jump  and  the  "stop"  ball  and  many  more 
eccentric  curves  which  usually  boil  down  to  modi- 
fications of  the  old  ones.  I  worked  for  two  weeks 
once  on  a  new,  slow,  spit  ball  that  would  wabble, 
but  the  trouble  was  that  I  could  never  tell  just 
when  or  where  it  was  going  to  wabble,  and  so  at 
last  I  had  to  abandon  it  because  I  could  not 
control  it. 

After  sending  out  fake  stories  of  new  and  won- 
derful curves  for  several  years,  at  last  the  corre- 
spondents got  a  new  one  when  the  spit  ball  was 
first  discovered  by  Stricklett,  a  Brooklyn  pitcher, 
several  seasons  ago.  One  Chicago  correspondent 


Teams  in  Spring  Training       223 

sent  back  to  his  paper  a  glowing  tale  of  the  wonder- 
ful new  curve  called  the  "spit  ball,"  which  was 
obtained  by  the  use  of  saliva,  only  to  get  a  wire 
from  his  office  which  read: 

"It 's  all  right  to  'fake'  about  new  curves,  but 
when  it  comes  to  being  vulgar  about  it,  that 's 
going  too  far.  Either  drop  that  spit  ball  or  mail 
us  your  resignation. " 

The  paper  refused  to  print  the  story  and  a  real 
new  curve  was  born  without  its  notice.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  Bowerman,  the  old  Giant  catcher, 
was  throwing  the  spit  ball  for  two  or  three  years 
before  it  was  discovered  to  be  a  pitching  asset. 
He  used  to  wet  his  fingers  when  catching,  and  as  he 
threw  to  second  base  the  ball  would  take  all 
sorts  of  eccentric  breaks  which  fooled  the  baseman, 
and  none  could  explain  why  it  did  it  until  Stricklett 
came  through  with  the  spit  ball. 

Many  good  pitchers,  who  feel  their  arms  begin 
to  weaken,  work  on  certain  freak  motions  or  forms 
of  delivery  to  make  themselves  more  effective  or 
draw  out  their  baseball  life  in  the  Big  Leagues  for 
a  year  or  two.  A  story  is  told  of  "Matty" 
Kilroy,  a  left-hander,  who  lived  for  two  years 
through  the  development  of  what  he  called  the 


224  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

"Bazzazaz"  balk,  and  it  had  the  same  effect  on 
his  pitching  as  administering  oxygen  often  has  on 
a  patient  who  is  almost  dead. 

"My  old  soup  bone,"  says  Kilroy,  "was  so 
weak  that  I  couldn't  break  a  pane  of  glass  at 
fifty  feet.  So  one  winter  I  spent  some  time  every 
day  out  in  the  back  yard  getting  that  balk  motion 
down.  I  had  a  pretty  fair  balk  motion  when  my 
arm  was  good,  but  I  saw  that  it  had  to  be  better, 
so  I  put  one  stone  in  the  yard  for  a  home  plate 
and  another  up  against  the  fence  for  first  base. 
Then  I  practised  looking  at  the  home  plate  stone 
and  throwing  at  first  base  with  a  snap  of  the  wrist 
and  without  moving  my  feet.  It  was  stare  steady 
at  the  batter,  then  the  arm  up  to  about  my  ear, 
and  zip,  with  a  twist  of  the  wrist  at  first  base,  and 
you  've  got  him! 

"  I  got  so  I  could  throw  'em  harder  to  the  bag 
with  that  wrist  wriggle  than  I  could  to  the  batter, 
and  I  had  them  stickin  'closer  to  the  base  for  two 
years  than  a  sixteen-year-old  fellow  does  to  his  gal 
when  they  've  just  decided  they  would  do  for  each 
other." 

As  a  rule  McGraw  takes  charge  of  the  batters 
and  general  team  work  at  spring  practice,  and  he  is 


Teams  in  Spring  Training        225 

one  of  the  busiest  little  persons  in  seven  counties, 
for  he  says  a  lot  depends  on  the  start  a  club  gets 
in  a  league  race.  He  always  wants  the  first  jump 
because  it  is  lots  easier  falling  back  than  catching 
up. 

After  a  week  or  so  of  practice,  the  team  is  divided 
up  into  two  squads,  and  one  goes  to  San  Antonio 
and  the  other  to  Houston  each  Saturday  and 
Sunday  to  play  games.  One  of  the  older  men  takes 
charge  of  the  younger  players,  and  there  is  a  lot 
of  rivalry  between  the  two  teams  to  see  which  one 
will  make  the  better  record,  I  remember  one  year 
I  was  handling  the  youngsters,  and  we  went  to 
Houston  to  play  the  team  there  and  just  managed 
to  nose  out  a  victory.  McGraw  thought  that  for 
the  next  Saturday  he  had  better  strengthen  the 
Yannigans  up  a  bit,  so  he  sent  Roger  Bresnahan 
along  to  play  third  base  instead  of  Henderson, 
the  young  fellow  we  had  the  week  before.  Play- 
ing third  base  could  not  exactly  have  been  called 
a  habit  with  "Rog"  at  that  time.  He  was  still 
pretty  fat,  and  bending  over  quick  after  grounders 
was  not  his  regular  line.  He  booted  two  or  three 
and  finally  managed  to  lose  the  game  for  us.  We 
sent  McGraw  the  following  telegram  that  night: 


226  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

"John  McGraw,  manager  of  the  Giants,  San 
Antonio,  Texas: 

"Will  trade  Bresnahan  for  Henderson.  Rush 
answer. " 

McGraw  does  not  like  to  have  any  of  his  clubs 
beaten  by  the  minor  leaguers,  because  the  bushers 
are  inclined  to  imitate  pouter  pigeons  right  away 
after  beating  the  Big  Leaguers. 

The  social  side  of  a  training  trip  consists  of 
kicking  about  the  grub,  singing  songs  at  night, 
and  listening  to  the  same  old  stories  that  creep 
out  of  the  bushes  on  crutches  year  after  year. 
Last  spring  the  food  got  so  bad  that  some  of  the 
newspaper  men  fixed  up  a  fake  story  they  said 
they  were  going  to  send  to  New  York,  displayed 
it  to  the  proprietor,  and  he  came  through  with 
beefsteak  for  three  nights  in  succession,  thus 
establishing  a  record  and  proving  the  power  of  the 
press.  The  trouble  with  the  diet  schedule  on  a 
spring  trip  is  that  almost  invariably  those  hotels 
on  the  bush-league  circuits  serve  dinner  in  the 
middle  of  the  day,  just  when  a  ball-player  does  not 
feel  like  eating  anything  much.  Then  at  night 
they  have  a  pick-up  supper  when  one's  stomach 
feels  as  if  it  thought  a  fellow's  throat  had  been  cut. 


Teams  in  Spring  Training       227 

The  Giants  had  an  umpire  with  them  in  the 
spring  of  1911,  named  Hansell,  who  enlivened 
the  long,  weary,  training  season  some.  Like  a  lot 
of  the  recruits  who  thought  that  they  were  great 
ball-players,  this  Hansell  firmly  believed  he  was  a 
great  umpire.  He  used  to  try  to  put  players  who 
did  not  agree  with  his  decisions  out  of  the  game 
and,  of  course,  they  would  not  go. 

"Why  don't  you  have  them  arrested  if  they 
won't  leave?"  McGraw  asked  him  one  day.  "I 
would. " 

So  the  next  afternoon  Hansell  had  a  couple  of 
the  local  constables  out  at  the  grounds  and  tried 
to  have  Devore  pinched  for  kicking  on  a  decision. 
"  Josh  "  got  sore  and  framed  it  up  to  have  a  camera 
man  at  the  park  the  next  day  to  take  a  moving 
picture  of  a  mob  scene,  Hansell,  the  umpire,  to  be 
the  hero  and  mobbed.  Hansell  fell  for  it  until  he 
saw  all  the  boys  picking  up  real  clods  and  digging 
the  dirt  out  of  their  spikes,  and  then  he  made  a 
run  for  it  and  never  came  back.  That  is  how  we 
lost  a  great  umpire. 

"You  boys  made  it  look  too  realistic  for  him, " 
declared  McGraw. 

Hansell  had  a  notion  that  he  was  a  runner  and 


228  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

offered  to  bet  Robinson,  who  is  rather  corpulent 
now,  that  he  could  beat  him  running  across  the 
field.  Robinson  took  him,  and  walked  home  ahead 
of  the  umpire  in  the  race. 

"I  don't  see  where  I  get  off  on  this  deal, "  com- 
plained McGraw  when  it  was  over.  "I  framed 
up  this  race  for  you  two  fellows,  and  then  Han- 
sell  comes  to  me  and  borrows  the  ten  to  pay 
'Robbie.'" 

Somebody  fixed  up  a  Turkish  bath  in  the  hotel 
one  day  by  stuffing  up  the  cracks  in  one  of  the 
bathrooms  and  turning  the  hot  water  into  the  tub 
and  the  steam  into  the  radiator  full  blast. 

Several  towels  were  piled  on  the  radiator  and 
the  players  sat  upon  this  swathed  in  blankets  to 
take  off  weight.  They  entered  the  impromptu 
Turkish  bath,  wearing  only  the  well-known  smile. 
McGraw  still  maintains  that  it  was  "Bugs" 
Raymond  who  pulled  out  the  towels  when  it  came 
the  manager's  turn  to  sit  on  the  radiator,  and,  if 
he  could  have  proved  his  case,  Raymond  would  not 
have  needed  a  doctor.  It  would  have  been  time 
for  the  undertaker. 

Finally  comes  the  long  wending  of  the  way  up 
North.  "Bugs"  Raymond  always  depends  on  his 


Teams  in  Spring  Training        229 

friends  for  his  refreshments,  and  as  he  had  few 
friends  in  Marlin  in  1911,  he  got  few  drinks. 
But  when  we  got  to  Dallas  cocktails  were  served 
with  the  dinner  and  all  the  ball-players  left  them 
untouched,  McGraw  enforcing  the  old  rule  that 
lips  that  touch  "licker"  shall  never  moisten  a  spit 
ball  for  him.  "Bugs"  was  missed  after  supper 
and  some  one  found  him  out  in  the  kitchen  licking 
up  all  the  discarded  Martinis.  That  was  the 
occasion  of  his  first  fine  of  the  season,  and  after 
that,  as  "Bugs"  himself  admitted,  "life  for  him 
was  just  one  fine  after  another. " 

At  last,  after  the  long  junket  through  the  South, 
on  which  all  managers  are  Simon  Legrees,  is 
ended,  comes  a  welcome  day,  when  the  new  uni- 
forms are  donned  and  the  band  plays  and  "them 
woids"  which  constitute  the  sweetest  music  to 
the  ears  of  a  ball-player,  roll  off  the  tongue  of 
the  umpire: 

"  The  batteries  for  to-day  are  Rucker  and  Bergen 
for  Brooklyn,  Marquard  and  Meyers  for  New 
York.  Play  ball!" 

The  season  is  on. 


XI 


Jinxes  and  What  They  Mean  to  a 
Ball-Player 

A  Load  of  Empty  Barrels,  Hired  by  John  McGraw, 
once  Pulled  the  Giants  out  of  a  Losing  Streak — 
The  Child  of  Superstition  Appears  to  the  Batt- 
Player  in  Many  Forms — Various  Ways  in  which 
the  Influence  of  the  Jinx  can  be  Overcome — The 
True  Story  of  "Charley  "  Faust— The  Necktie  that 
Helped  Win  a  Pennant. 

A  FRIEND  of  mine,  who  took  a  different  fork 
•**•  in  the  road  when  we  left  college  from  the 
one  that  I  have  followed,  was  walking  down 
Broadway  in  New  York  with  me  one  morning  after 
I  had  joined  the  Giants,  and  we  passed  a  cross-eyed 
man.  I  grabbed  off  my  hat  and  spat  in  it.  It  was 
a  new  'hat,  too.  "What 's  the  matter  with  you, 
Matty?"  he  asked,  surprised. 

"Spit  in  your  hat  quick  and  kill  that  jinx," 
230 


Jinxes  and  What  They  Mean     231 

I  answered,  not  thinking  for  the  minute,  and  he 
followed  my  example. 

I  forgot  to  mention,  when  I  said  he  took  another 
fork  in  the  road,  that  he  had  become  a  pitcher, 
too,  but  of  a  different  kind.  He  had  turned  out  to 
be  sort  of  a  conversational  pitcher,  for  he  was  a 
minister,  and,  as  luck  would  have  it, on  the  morning 
we  met  that  cross-eyed  man  he  was  wearing  a 
silk  hat.  I  was  shocked,  pained,  and  mortified 
when  I  saw  what  I  had  made  him  do.  But  he 
was  the  right  sort,  and  wanted  to  go  through  with 
the  thing  according  to  the  standards  of  the  pro- 
fessional man  with  whom  he  happened  to  be  at 
the  time. 

"What 's  the  idea?"  he  asked  as  he  replaced  his 
hat. 

"Worst  jinx  in  the  world  to  see  a  cross-eyed 
man, "  I  replied.  "But  I  hope  I  did  n't  hurt  your 
silk  hat, "  I  quickly  apologized. 

"Not  at  all.  But  how  about  these  ball-players 
who  masticate  the  weed?  Do  they  kill  jinxes, 
too?"  he  wanted  to  know.  And  I  had  to  admit 
that  they  were  the  main  exterminators  of  the  jinx. 

"Then,"  he  went  on,  "I  'm  glad  that  the  per- 
centage of  wearers  of  cross  eyes  is  small. " 


232  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

I  have  just  looked  into  one  of  my  favorite  works 
for  that  word  "jinx,"  and  found  it  not.  My 
search  was  in  Webster's  dictionary.  But  any  ball- 
player can  give  a  definition  of  it  with  his  hands 
tied  behind  him — that  is,  any  one  except  "Arlie" 
Latham,  and,  with  his  hands  bound,  he  is  deaf  and 
dumb.  A  jinx  is  something  which  brings  bad  luck 
to  a  ball-player,  and  the  members  of  the  profession 
have  built  up  a  series  of  lucky  and  unlucky  omens 
that  should  be  catalogued.  And  besides  the  com- 
mon or  garden  variety  of  jinxes,  many  stars  have  a 
series  of  private  or  pet  and  trained  ones  that  are 
more  malignant  in  their  forms  than  those  which 
come  out  in  the  open. 

A  jinx  is  the  child  of  superstition,  and  ball- 
players are  among  the  most  superstitious  persons 
in  the  world,  notwithstanding  all  this  conversation 
lately  about  educated  men  breaking  into  the 
game  and  paying  no  attention  whatever  to  the 
good  and  bad  omens.  College  men  are  coming 
into  both  the  leagues,  more  of  them  each  year,  and 
they  are  doing  their  share  to  make  the  game  better 
and  the  class  of  men  higher,  but  they  fall  the 
hardest  for  the  jinxes.  And  I  don't  know  as  it  is 
anything  to  be  ashamed  of  at  that. 


Jinxes  and  What  They  Mean     233 

A  really  true,  on-the-level,  honest-to-jiminy 
jinx  can  do  all  sorts  of  mean  things  to  a  profes- 
sional ball-player.  I  have  seen  it  make  a  bad 
pitcher  out  of  a  good  one,  and  a  blind  batter  out 
of  a  three-hundred  hitter,  and  I  have  seen  it  make 
a  ball  club,  composed  of  educated  men,  carry  a 
Kansas  farmer,  with  two  or  three  screws  rattling 
loose  in  his  dome,  around  the  circuit  because  he 
came  as  a  prophet  and  said  that  he  was  accom- 
panied by  Miss  Fickle  Fortune.  And  that  is 
almost  a  jinx  record. 

Jinx  and  Miss  Fickle  Fortune  never  go  around 
together.  And  ball-players  are  always  trying  to 
kill  this  jinx,  for,  once  he  joins  the  club,  all  hope 
is  gone.  He  dies  hard,  and  many  a  good  hat  has 
been  ruined  in  an  effort  to  destroy  him,  as  I  have 
said  before,  because  the  wearer  happened  to  be 
chewing  tobacco  when  the  jinx  dropped  around. 
But  what 's  a  new  hat  against  a  losing  streak  or  a 
batting  slump? 

Luck  is  a  combination  of  confidence  and  getting 
the  breaks.  Ball-players  get  no  breaks  without 
confidence  in  themselves,  and  lucky  omens  inspire 
this  confidence.  On  the  other  hand,  unlucky 
signs  take  it  away.  The  lucky  man  is  the  one  who 


234  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

hits  the  nail  on  the  head  and  not  his  fingers,  and 
the  ability  to  swat  the  nail  on  its  receptive  end 
is  a  combination  of  self-confidence  and  an  aptitude 
for  hammering.  Good  ball-playing  is  the  com- 
bination of  self-confidence  and  the  ability  to  play. 
The  next  is  "Red"  Ames,  although  designated 
as  "Leon"  by  his  family  when  a  very  small  boy 
before  he  began  to  play  ball.  (He  is  still  called 
"  Leon  "  in  the  winter.)  Ames  is  of  Warren,  Ohio, 
and  the  Giants,  and  he  is  said  to  hold  the  Marathon 
record  for  being  the  most  unlucky  pitcher  that 
ever  lived,  and  I  agree  with  the  sayers.  For 
several  seasons,  Ames  could  n't  seem  to  win  a  ball 
game,  no  matter  how  well  he  pitched.  In  1909, 
"Red"  twirled  a  game  on  the  opening  day  of  the 
season  against  Brooklyn  that  was  the  work  of  a 
master.  For  nine  innings  he  held  his  opponents 
hitless,  only  to  have  them  win  in  the  thirteenth. 
Time  and  again  Ames  has  pitched  brilliantly,  to 
be  finally  beaten  by  a  small  score,  because  one  of 
the  men  behind  him  made  an  error  at  a  critical 
moment,  or  because  the  team  could  not  give  him 
any  runs  by  which  to  win.  No  wonder  the  news- 
papers began  to  speak  of  Ames  as  the  "hoodoo" 
pitcher  and  the  man  "who  could  n't  win." 


Jinxes  and  What  They  Mean     235 

There  was  a  cross-eyed  fellow  who  lived  between 
Ames  and  the  Polo  Grounds,  and  "Red"  used  to 
make  a  detour  of  several  blocks  en  route  to  the 
park  to  be  sure  to  miss  him  in  case  he  should  be 
out  walking.  But  one  day  in  1911,  when  it  was 
his  turn  to  pitch,  he  bumped  into  that  cross-eyed 
man  and,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  did  his  duty 
by  his  hat  and  got  three  or  four  small  boys  to  help 
him  out,  he  failed  to  last  two  innings.  When  it 
came  time  to  go  West  on  the  final  trip  of  the  1911 
season,  Ames  was  badly  discouraged. 

"I  don't  see  any  use  in  taking  me  along,  Mac," 
he  said  to  McGraw  a  few  days  before  we  left. 
11  The  club  can't  win  with  me  pitching  if  the  other 
guys  don't  even  get  a  foul." 

The  first  stop  was  in  Boston,  and  on  the  day 
we  arrived  it  rained.  In  the  mail  that  day, 
addressed  to  Leon  Ames,  came  a  necktie  and  a  four- 
leaf  clover  from  a  prominent  actress,  wishing 
Ames  good  luck.  The  directions  were  inside  the 
envelope.  The  four-leaf  clover,  if  the  charm  were 
to  work,  must  be  worn  on  both  the  uniform  and 
street  clothes,  and  the  necktie  was  to  be  worn 
with  the  street  clothes  and  concealed  in  the 
uniform,  if  that  necktie  could  be  concealed  any- 


236  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

where.  It  would  have  done  for  a  headlight  and 
made  Joseph's  coat  of  many  colors  look  like  a 
mourning  garment. 

"  Might  as  well  wish  good  luck  to  a  guy  on  the 
way  to  the  morgue, "  murmured  Ames  as  he  sur- 
veyed the  layout,  but  he  manfully  put  on  the  neck- 
tie, taking  his  first  dose  of  the  prescription,  as 
directed,  at  once,  and  he  tucked  the  four-leaf  clover 
away  carefully  in  his  wallet. 

"You  Ve  got  your  work  cut  out  for  you,  old 
boy,"  he  remarked  to  the  charm  as  he  put  it 
away,  "  but  I  'd  wear  you  if  you  were  a  horseshoe. " 

The  first  day  that  Ames  pitched  in  Boston  he 
won,  and  won  in  a  stroll. 

"The  necktie,"  he  explained  that  night  at  din- 
ner, and  pointed  to  the  three-sheet,  colored-supple- 
ment affair  he  was  wearing  around  his  collar, 
"I  don't  change  her  until  I  lose." 

And  he  did  n't  lose  a  game  on  that  trip.  Once 
he  almost  did,  when  he  was  taken  out  in  the  sixth 
inning,  and  a  batter  put  in  for  him,  but  the 
Giants  finally  pulled  out  the  victory  and  he  got 
the  credit  for  it.  He  swept  through  the  West 
unbeatable,  letting  down  Pittsburg  with  two  or 
three  hits,  cleaning  up  in  St.  Louis,  and  finally 


Jinxes  and  What  They  Mean     237 

breaking  our  losing  streak  in  Chicago  after  two 
games  had  gone  against  us.  And  all  the  time  he 
wore  that  spectrum  around  his  collar  for  a  necktie. 
As  it  frayed  with  the  wear  and  tear,  more  colors 
began  to  show,  although  I  did  n't  think  it  possible. 
If  he  had  had  occasion  to  put  on  his  evening 
clothes,  I  believe  that  tie  would  have  gone  with 
it. 

For  my  part,  I  would  almost  rather  have  lost 
a  game  and  changed  the  necktie,  since  it  gave  one 
the  feeling  all  the  time  that  he  was  carrying  it 
around  with  him  because  he  had  had  the  wrong 
end  of  an  election  bet,  or  something  of  the  sort. 
But  not  Ames!  He  was  a  game  guy.  He  stuck 
with  the  necktie,  and  it  stuck  with  him,  and  the 
combination  kept  right  on  winning  ball  games. 
Maybe  he  did  n't  mind  it  because  he  could  not 
see  it  himself,  unless  he  looked  in  a  mirror,  but  it 
was  rough  on  the  rest  of  the  team,  except  that  we 
needed  the  games  the  necktie  won,  to  take  the 
pennant. 

Columns  were  printed  in  the  newspapers  about 
that  necktie,  and  it  became  the  most  famous  scarf 
in  the  world.  Ames  used  to  sleep  with  it  under  his 
pillow  alongside  of  his  bank  roll,  and  he  did  n't 


238  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

lose  another  game  until  the  very  end  of  the  season, 
when  he  dropped  one  against  Brooklyn. 

"I  don't  hardly  lay  that  up  against  the  tie," 
he  said  afterwards.  "You  see,  Mac  put  all  those 
youngsters  into  it,  and  I  did  n't  get  any  support. " 

Analyzing  is  a  distasteful  pastime  to  me,  but 
let 's  see  what  it  was  that  made  Ames  win.  Was 
it  the  necktie?  Perhaps  not.  But  some  sliver  of 
confidence,  which  resulted  from  that  first  game 
when  he  was  dressed  up  in  the  scarf  and  the  four- 
leaf  clover,  got  stuck  in  his  mind.  And  after 
that  the  rest  was  easy. 

Frank  Chance,  the  manager  of  the  Cubs,  has  a 
funny  superstition  which  is  of  the  personal  sort. 
Most  ball-players  have  a  natural  prejudice  against 
the  number  "13"  in  any  form,  but  particularly 
when  attached  to  a  Pullman  berth.  But  Chance 
always  insists,  whenever  possible,  that  he  have 
"lower  13."  He  says  that  if  he  can  just  crawl 
in  under  that  number  he  is  sure  of  a  good  night's 
rest,  a  safe  journey,  and  a  victory  the  next  day. 
He  has  been  in  two  or  three  minor  railroad  acci- 
dents, and  he  declares  that  all  these  occurred 
when  he  was  sleeping  on  some  other  shelf  besides 
"lower  13."  He  can  usually  satisfy  his  hobby, 


Jinxes  and  What  They  Mean     239 

too,  for  most  travellers  steer  clear  of  the 
berth. 

McGraw  believes  a  stateroom  brings  him  good 
luck,  or  at  least  he  always  insists  on  having  one 
when  he  can  get  it. 

"Chance  can  have  'lower  13,'"  says  "Mac," 
"but  give  me  a  stateroom  for  luck." 

Most  ball-players  nowadays  treat  the  super- 
stitions of  the  game  as  jokes,  probably  because 
they  are  a  little  ashamed  to  acknowledge  their 
weaknesses,  but  away  down  underneath  they 
observe  the  proprieties  of  the  ritual.  Why,  even 
I  won't  warm  up  with  the  third  baseman  while  I 
am  waiting  for  the  catcher  to  get  on  his  mask  and 
the  rest  of  his  paraphernalia.  Once,  when  I  first 
broke  in  with  the  Giants,  I  warmed  up  with  the 
third  baseman  between  innings  and  in  the  next 
round  they  hit  me  hard  and  knocked  me  out  of 
the  box.  Since  then  I  have  had  an  uncommon 
prejudice  against  the  practice,  and  I  hate  to  hear 
a  man  even  mention  it.  Devlin  knows  of  my 
weakness  and  never  suggests  it  when  he  is  playing 
the  bag,  but  occasionally  a  new  performer  will 
drill  into  the  box  score  at  third  base  and 
yell: 


24°  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

"Come  on,  Matty!  Warm  up  here  while 
you  're  waiting. " 

It  gets  me.  I  '11  pitch  to  the  first  baseman  or  a 
substitute  catcher  to  keep  warm,  but  I  woiild 
rather  freeze  to  death  than  heat  up  with  the  third 
baseman.  That  is  one  of  my  pet  jinxes. 

And  speaking  of  Arthur  Devlin,  he  has  a  few 
hand-raised  jinxes  of  his  own,  too.  For  instance, 
he  never  likes  to  hear  a  player  hum  a  tune  on  the 
bench,  because  he  thinks  it  will  keep  him  from 
getting  a  base  hit.  He  nearly  beat  a  youngster 
to  death  one  day  when  he  kept  on  humming  after 
Devlin  had  told  him  to  stop. 

"Cut  that  out,  Caruso,"  yelled  Arthur,  as  the 
recruit  started  his  melody.  "You  are  killing 
base  hits. " 

The  busher  continued  with  his  air  until  Devlin 
tried  another  form  of  persuasion. 

Arthur  also  has  a  favorite  seat  on  the  bench 
which  he  believes  is  luckier  than  the  rest,  and  he 
insists  on  sitting  in  just  that  one  place. 

But  the  worst  blow  Devlin  ever  had  was  when 
some  young  lady  admirer  of  his  in  his  palmy  days, 
who  unfortunately  wore  her  eyes  crossed,  insisted 
on  sitting  behind  third  base  for  each  game,  so  as 


Jinxes  and  What  They  Mean     241 

to  be  near  him.  Arthur  noticed  her  one  day  and, 
after  that,  it  was  all  off.  He  hit  the  worst  slump 
of  his  career.  For  a  while  no  one  could  under- 
stand it,  but  at  last  he  confessed  to  McGraw. 

"Mac,"  he  said  one  night  in  the  club-house, 
"it 's  that  jinx.  Have  you  noticed  her?  She 
sits  behind  the  bag  every  day,  and  she  has  got  me 
going.  She  has  sure  slid  the  casters  under  me. 
I  wish  we  could  bar  her  out,  or  poison  her,  or  shoot 
her,' or  chloroform  her,  or  kill  her  in  some  nice, 
mild  way  because,  if  it  is  n't  done,  this  League 
is  going  to  lose  a  ball-player.  How  can  you 
expect  a  guy  to  play  with  that  overlooking  him 
every  afternoon  ? ' ' 

McGraw  took  Devlin  out  of  the  game  for  a  time 
after  that,  and  the  newspapers  printed  several 
yards  about  the  cross-eyed  jinx  who  had  ruined 
the  Giants'  third  baseman. 

With  the  infield  weakened  by  the  loss  of  Devlin, 
the  club  began  to  lose  with  great  regularity.  But 
one  day  the  jinxess  was  missing  and  she  never 
came  back.  She  must  have  read  in  the  newspapers 
what  she  was  doing  to  Devlin,  her  hero,  and  quit 
the  national  pastime  or  moved  to  another  part  of 
the  stand.  Witk  this  weight  off  his  shoulders, 


242  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

Arthur  went  back  into  the  game  and  played  like 
mad. 

"If  she'd  stuck  much  longer,"  declared  Mc- 
Graw,  joyous  in  his  rejuvenated  third  baseman, 
"I  would  have  had  her  eyes  operated  on  and 
straightened.  This  club  could  n't  afford  to  keep 
on  losing  ball  games  because  you  are  such  a  Romeo, 
Arthur,  that  even  the  cross-eyed  ones  fall  for 
you. " 

Ball-players  are  very  superstitious  about  the 
bats.  Did  you  ever  notice  how  the  clubs  are  all 
laid  out  in  a  neat,  even  row  before  the  bench  and 
are  scrupulously  kept  that  way  by  the  bat  boy? 
If  one  of  the  sticks  by  any  chance  gets  crossed,  all 
the  players  will  shout: 

"Uncross  the  bats!    Uncross  the  bats!" 

It's  as  bad  as  discovering  a  three-alarm  fire 
in  an  excelsior  factory.  Don't  believe  it?  Then 
listen  to  what  happened  to  the  Giants  once  because 
a  careless  bat  boy  neglected  his  duty.  The  team 
was  playing  in  Cincinnati  in  the  season  of  1906 
when  one  of  the  bats  got  crossed  through  the 
carelessness  of  the  boy.  What  was  the  result? 
"Mike"  Donlin,  the  star  slugger  of  the  team,  slid 
into  third  base  and  came  up  with  a  broken  ankle. 


Jinxes  and  What  They  Mean     243 

Ever  since  that  time  we  have  carried  our  own 
boy  with  us,  because  a  club  with  championship 
aspirations  cannot  afford  to  take  a  chance  with 
those  foreign  artists  handling  the  bats.  They  are 
likely  to  throw  you  down  at  any  time. 

The  Athletics  have  a  funny  superstition  which 
is  private  or  confined  to  their  team  as  far  as  I 
know.  When  luck  seems  to  be  breaking  against 
them  in  a  game,  they  will  take  the  bats  and  throw 
them  wildly  into  the  air  and  let  them  lie  around  in 
front  of  their  bench,  topsy-turvy.  They  call  this 
changing  the  luck,  but  any  other  club  would 
consider  that  it  was  the  worst  kind  of  a  jinx. 
It  is  the  same  theory  that  card-players  have  about 
shuffling  the  deck  vigorously  to  bring  a  different 
run  of  fortune.  Then,  if  the  luck  changes,  the 
Athletics  throw  the  bats  around  some  more  to  keep 
it.  This  act  nearly  cost  them  one  of  their  best 
ball-players  in  the  third  game  of  the  1911  world's 
series. 

The  Philadelphia  players  had  tossed  their  bats 
to  break  their  run  of  luck,  for  the  score  was  I  to  o 
against  them,  when  Baker  came  up  in  the  ninth 
inning.  He  cracked  his  now  famous  home  run 
into  the  right-field  bleachers,  and  the  men  on  the 


244  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

bench  hurled  the  bats  wildly  into  the  air.  In 
jumping  up  and  reaching  for  a  bat  to  throw,  Jack 
Barry,  the  shortstop,  hit  his  head  on  the  concrete 
roof  of  the  structure  and  was  stunned  for  a  minute. 
He  said  that  little  black  specks  were  floating  in 
front  of  his  eyes,  but  he  gamely  insisted  on  playing 
the  contest  out.  "Connie"  Mack  was  so  worried 
over  his  condition  that  he  sent  Ira  Thomas  out 
on  the  field  to  inquire  if  he  were  all  right,  and  this 
interrupted  the  game  in  the  ninth  inning.  A  lot 
of  the  spectators  thought  that  Thomas  was  out 
there,  bearing  some  secret  message  from  "Con- 
nie" Mack.  None  knew  that  he  was  ascertaining 
the  health  of  a  player  who  had  almost  killed  him- 
self while  killing  a  jinx. 

The  Athletics,  for  two  seasons,  have  carried 
with  them  on  all  their  trips  a  combination  bat  boy 
and  mascot  who  is  a  hunchback,  and  he  outjinxed 
our  champion  jinx  killer,  Charley  Faust,  in  the 
1911  world's  series.  A  hunchback  is  regarded  by 
ball-players  as  the  best  luck  in  the  world.  If  a 
man  can  just  touch  that  hump  on  the  way  to  the 
plate,  he  is  sure  to  get  a  hit,  and  any  observant 
spectator  will  notice  the  Athletics'  hitters  rubbing 
the  hunchback  boy  before  leaving  the  bench. 


Jinxes  and  What  They  Mean      245 

So  attached  to  this  boy  have  the  players  become 
that  they  voted  him  half  a  share  of  the  prize  money 
last  year  after  the  world's  series.  Lots  of  ball- 
players would  tell  you  that  he  deserved  it  because 
he  has  won  two  world's  pennants  for  them. 

Another  great  piece  of  luck  is  for  a  ball-player 
to  rub  a  colored  kid's  head.  I  've  walked  along 
the  street  with  ball-players  and  seen  them  stop  a 
young  negro  and  take  off  his  hat  and  run  their 
hands  through  his  kinky  hair.  Then  I  Ve  seen 
the  same  ball-player  go  out  and  get  two  or  three 
hits  that  afternoon  and  play  the  game  of  his  life. 
Again,  it  is  the  confidence  inspired,  coupled  with 
the  ability. 

Another  old  superstition  among  ball-players  is 
that  a  load  of  empty  barrels  means  base  hits. 
If  an  athlete  can  just  pass  a  flock  of  them  on  the 
way  to  the  park,  he  is  sure  to  step  right  along 
stride  for  stride  with  the  three-hundred  hitters  that 
afternoon. 

McGraw  once  broke  up  a  batting  slump  of  the 
Giants  with  a  load  of  empty  barrels.  That  is  why 
I  maintain  he  is  the  greatest  manager  of  them  all. 
He  takes  advantage  of  the  little  things,  even  the 
superstitions  of  his  men,  and  turns  them  to  his 


246  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

account.  He  played  this  trick  in  one  of  the  first 
years  that  he  managed  the  New  York  club.  The 
batting  of  all  the  players  had  slumped  at  the 
same  time.  None  could  hit,  and  the  club  was 
losing  game  after  game  as  a  result,  because  the 
easiest  pitchers  were  making  the  best  batters 
look  foolish.  One  day  Bowerman  came  into  the 
clubhouse  with  a  smile  on  his  face  for  the  first 
time  in  a  week. 

"Saw  a  big  load  of  empty  barrels  this  afternoon, 
boys,"  he  announced,  "and  just  watch  me  pickle 
the  pill  out  there  to-day. " 

Right  at  that  point  McGraw  got  an  idea,  as  he 
frequently  does.  Bowerman  went  out  that  after- 
noon and  made  four  hits  out  of  a  possible  five. 
The  next  day  three  or  four  more  of  the  players 
came  into  the  park,  carrying  smiles  and  the 
announcement  that  fortunately  they,  too,  had  met 
a  load  of  empty  barrels.  They,  then,  all  went  out 
and  regained  their  old  batting  strides,  and  we  won 
that  afternoon  for  the  first  time  in  a  week.  More 
saw  a  load  of  barrels  the  next  day  and  started  to 
bat.  At  last  all  the  members  of  the  team  had 
met  the  barrels,  and  men  with  averages  of  .119 
were  threatening  to  chisel  into  the  three-hundred 


Jinxes  and  What  They  Mean     247 

set.  With  remarkable  regularity  the  players  were 
meeting  loads  of  empty  barrels  on  their  way  to  the 
park,  and,  with  remarkable  regularity  and  a 
great  deal  of  expedition,  the  pitchers  of  opposing 
clubs  were  being  driven  to  the  shower  bath. 

"Say,"  asked  "Billy"  Gilbert,  the  old  second 
baseman,  of  "Bill"  Lauder,  formerly  the  protector 
of  the  third  corner,  one  day,  "is  one  of  that  team 
of  horses  sorrel  and  the  other  white?" 

"  Sure, "  answered  "  Bill. " 

"Sure,"  echoed  McGraw.  "I  hired  that  load 
of  empty  barrels  by  the  week  to  drive  around  and 
meet  you  fellows  on  the  way  to  the  park,  and  you 
don't  think  I  can  afford  to  have  them  change 
horses  every  day,  do  you?" 

Everybody  had  a  good  laugh  and  kept  on  swat- 
ting. McGraw  asked  for  waivers  on  the  load  of 
empty  barrels  soon  afterwards,  but  his  scheme  had 
stopped  a  batting  slump  and  put  the  club's  hitters 
on  their  feet  again.  He  plays  to  the  little  personal 
qualities  and  superstitions  in  the  men  to  get  the 
most  out  of  them.  And  just  seeing  those  barrels 
gave  them  the  idea  that  they  were  bound  to  get 
the  base  hits,  and  they  got  them.  Once  more,  the 
old  confidence,  hitched  up  with  ability. 


248  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

What  manager  would  have  carried  a  Kansas 
farmer  around  the  circuit  with  him  besides  Mc- 
Graw?  I  refer  to  Charles  Victor  Faust  of  Marion, 
Kansas,  the  most  famous  jinx  killer  of  them  all. 
Faust  first  met  the  Giants  in  St.  Louis  on  the  next 
to  the  last  trip  the  club  made  West  in  the  season 
of  1911,  when  he  wandered  into  the  Planter's 
Hotel  one  day,  asked  for  McGraw  and  announced 
that  a  fortune  teller  of  Marion  had  informed  him  he 
would  be  a  great  pitcher  and  that  for  $5  he  could 
have  a  full  reading.  This  pitching  announcement 
piqued  Charles,  and  he  reached  down  into  his 
jeans,  dug  out  his  last  five,  and  passed  it  over. 
The  fortune  teller  informed  Faust  that  all  he  had  to 
do  to  get  into  the  headlines  of  the  newspapers  and 
to  be  a  great  pitcher  was  to  join  the  New  York 
Giants.  He  joined,  and,  after  he  once  joined,  it 
would  have  taken  the  McNamaras  in  their  best 
form  to  separate  him  from  the  said  Giants. 

"  Charley  "  came  out  to  the  ball  park  and  amused 
himself  warming  up.  Incidentally,  the  Giants 
did  not  lose  a  game  while  he  was  in  the  neighbor- 
hood. The  night  the  club  left  for  Chicago  on 
that  trip,  he  was  down  at  the  Union  Station  ready 
to  go  along. 


Jinxes  and  What  They  Mean     249 

"Did  you  get  your  contract  and  transporta- 
tion?" asked  McGraw,  as  the  lanky  Kansan 
appeared. 

"No,"  answered  "Charley." 

"Pshaw,"  replied  McGraw.  "I  left  it  for  you 
with  the  clerk  at  the  hotel.  The  train  leaves  in 
two  minutes, "  he  continued,  glancing  at  his  watch. 
"If  you  can  run  the  way  you  say  you  can,  you 
can  make  it  and  be  back  in  time  to  catch  it. " 

It  was  the  last  we  saw  of  "Charley"  Faust  for 
a  time — galloping  up  the  platform  in  his  angular 
way  with  that  contract  and  transportation  in  sight. 

"I  'm  almost  sorry  we  left  him, "  remarked  Mc- 
Graw as  "Charley"  disappeared  in  the  crowd. 
We  played  on  around  the  circuit  with  indifferent 
luck  and  got  back  to  New  York  with  the  pennant 
no  more  than  a  possibility,  and  rather  a  remote 
one  at  that.  The  first  day  we  were  in  New  York 
"Charley"  Faust  entered  the  clubhouse  with 
several  inches  of  dust  and  mud  caked  on  him,  for 
he  had  come  all  the  way  either  by  side-door 
special  or  blind  baggage. 

"I'm  here,  all  right,"  he  announced  quietly, 
and  started  to  climb  into  a  uniform. 

"I  see  you  are,"  answered  McGraw. 


250  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

"Charley"  stuck  around  for  two  or  three  days, 
and  we  won.  Then  McGraw  decided  he  would 
have  to  be  dropped  and  ordered  the  man  on  the 
door  of  the  clubhouse  to  bar  this  Kansas  kid  out. 
Faust  broke  down  and  cried  that  day,  and  we  lost. 
After  that  he  became  a  member  of  the  club,  and  we 
won  game  after  game  until  some  busy  newspaper 
man  obtained  a  vaudeville  engagement  for  him  at 
a  salary  of  $100  a  week.  We  lost  three  games 
the  week  he  was  absent  from  the  grounds,  and 
Faust  saw  at  once  he  was  not  doing  the  right 
thing  by  the  club,  so,  with  a  wave  of  his  hand  that 
would  have  gone  with  J.  P.  Morgan's  income,  he 
passed  up  some  lucrative  vaudeville  contracts, 
much  to  the  disgust  of  the  newspaper  man,  who 
was  cutting  the  remuneration  with  him,  and  settled 
down  to  business.  The  club  did  not  lose  a  game 
after  that,  and  it  was  decided  to  take  Faust  West 
with  us  on  the  last  and  famous  trip  in  1911. 
Daily  he  had  been  bothering  McGraw  and  Mr. 
Brush  for  his  contract,  for  he  wanted  to  pitch. 
The  club  paid  him  some  money  from  time  to  time 
to  meet  his  personal  expenses. 

The  Sunday  night  the  club  left  for  Boston,  a 
vaudeville  agent  was  at  the  Grand  Central  Station 


Jinxes  and  What  They  Mean     251 

with  a  contract  offering  Faust  $100  a  week  for 
five  weeks,  which  "Charley"  refused  in  order  to 
stick  with  the  club.  It  was  the  greatest  trip 
away  from  home  in  the  history  of  baseball.  Start- 
ing with  the  pennant  almost  out  of  reach,  the 
Giants  won  eighteen  and  lost  four  games.  One 
contest  that  we  dropped  in  St.  Louis  was  when 
some  of  the  newspaper  correspondents  on  the  trip 
kidnapped  Faust  and  sat  him  on  the  St.  Louis 
bench. 

Another  day  in  St.  Louis  the  game  had  gone 
eleven  innings,  and  the  Cardinals  needed  one  run 
to  win.  They  had  several  incipient  scores  on  the 
bases  and  "Rube"  Marquard,  in  the  box,  was 
apparently  going  up  in  the  air.  Only  one  was  out. 
Faust  was  warming  up  far  in  the  suburbs  when, 
under  orders  from  McGraw,  I  ran  out  and  sent 
him  to  the  bench,  for  that  was  the  place  from  which 
his  charm  seemed  to  be  the  most  potent.  "Char- 
ley" came  loping  to  the  bench  as  fast  as  his  long 
legs  would  transport  him  and  St.  Louis  did  n't 
score  and  we  won  the  game.  It  was  as  nice  a 
piece  of  pinch  mascoting  as  I  ever  saw. 

The  first  two  games  that  "Charley"  really  lost 
were  in  Chicago.  And  all  through  the  trip,  he 


252  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

reiterated  his  weird  prophecies  that  "the  Giants 
with  Manager  McGraw  were  goin'  ta  win. "  The 
players  believed  in  him,  and  none  would  have  let 
him  go  if  it  had  been  necessary  to  support  him  out 
of  their  own  pockets.  And  we  did  win. 

"Charley,"  with  his  monologue  and  great  good 
humor,  kept  the  players  in  high  spirits  throughout 
the  journey,  and  the  feeling  prevailed  that  we 
couldn't  lose  with  him  along.  He  was  adver- 
tised all  over  the  circuit,  and  spectators  were  going 
to  the  ball  park  to  see  Faust  and  Wagner.  "  Char- 
ley" admitted  that  he  could  fan  out  Hans  because 
he  had  learned  how  to  pitch  out  there  in  Kansas 
by  correspondence  school  and  had  read  of  "  Hans's" 
weakness  in  a  book.  His  one  "groove"  was 
massages  and  manicures.  He  would  go  into  the 
barber  shop  with  any  member  of  the  team  who 
happened  to  be  getting  shaved  and  take  a  massage 
and  manicure  for  the  purposes  of  sociability,  as  a 
man  takes  a  drink.  He  easily  was  the  record 
holder  for  the  manicure  Marathon,  hanging  up 
the  figures  of  five  in  one  day  in  St.  Louis.  He  also 
liked  pie  for  breakfast,  dinner  and  supper,  and  a 
small  half  before  retiring. 

But,    alas!     "Charley"    lost    in    the    world's 


Jinxes  and  What  They  Mean     253 

series.  He  could  n't  make  good.  And  a  jinx 
killer  never  comes  back.  He  is  gone.  And  his 
expansive  smile  and  bump-the-bumps  slide  are 
gone  with  him.  That  is,  McGraw  hopes  he  is 
gone.  But  he  was  a  wonder  while  he  had  it. 
And  he  did  a  great  deal  toward  giving  the  players 
confidence.  With  him  on  the  bench,  they  thought 
they  could  n't  lose,  and  they  could  n't.  It  has 
long  been  a  superstition  among  ball-players  that 
when  a  "bug"  joins  a  club,  it  will  win  a  champion- 
ship, and  the  Giants  believed  it  when  "Charley" 
Faust  arrived.  Did  "Charley"  Faust  win  the 
championship  for  the  Giants? 

Another  time-honored  superstition  among  ball- 
players is  that  no  one  must  say  to  a  pitcher  as  he 
goes  to  the  box  for  the  eighth  inning: 

"Come  on,  now.     Only  six  more  men." 

Or  for  the  ninth: 

"  Pitch  hard,  now.     Only  three  left. " 

Ames  says  that  he  lost  a  game  in  St.  Louis 
once  because  McGraw  forgot  himself  and  urged 
him  to  pitch  hard  because  only  three  remained  to 
be  put  out.  Those  three  batters  raised  the  mis- 
chief with  Ames's  prospects ;  he  was  knocked  out 


254  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

of  the  box  in  that  last  inning,  and  we  lost  the  game. 
That  was  before  the  days  of  the  wonder  necktie. 

Ames  won  the  third  game  played  in  Chicago  on 
the  last  trip  West.  Coming  into  the  ninth  inning, 
he  had  the  Cubs  beaten,  when  McGraw  began: 

"Come  on,  'Red,'  only " 

"Nix,  Mac,"  cut  in  Ames,  "for  the  love  of 
Mike,  be  reasonable. " 

And  then  he  won  the  game.  But  the  chances 
are  that  if  McGraw  had  got  that  "only  three 
more"  out,  he  would  have  lost,  because  it  would 
have  been  working  on  his  strained  nerves. 


XII 

Base   Runners   and    How  They  Help  a 
Pitcher  to  Win 

The  Secret  of  Successful  Base  Running  is  Getting  the 
Start— A  Club  Composed  of  Good  Base  Runners  Is 
Likely  to  do  More  to  Help  a  Pitcher  Win  Games 
than  a  Batting  Order  of  Hard  Hitters — Stealing 
Second  Is  an  Art  in  Taking  Chances — The  Giants 
Stole  their  Way  to  a  Pennant,  but  "Connie"  Mack 
Stopped  the  Grand  Larceny  when  it  Came  to  a 
World's  Championship. 

IV  A  ANY  times  have  the  crowds  at  the  Polo 
T**  Grounds  seen  a  man  get  on  first  base  in  a 
close  game,  and,  with  the  pitcher's  motion,  start 
to  steal  second,  only  to  have  the  catcher  throw 
him  out.  The  spectators  groan  and  criticise  the 
manager. 

"Why  did  n't  he  wait  for  the  hitters  to  bat  him 
around?  "  is  the  cry. 

255 


256  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

Then,  again,  a  man  starts  for  the  base,  times  his 
get-away  just  right,  and  slides  into  the  bag  in  a 
cloud  of  dust  while  the  umpire  spreads  out  his 
hands  indicating  that  he  is  safe.  The  crowd 
cheers  and  proclaims  McGraw  a  great  manager 
and  the  stealer  a  great  base  runner.  Maybe 
the  next  batter  comes  along  with  a  hit,  and  the 
runner  scores.  It  wins  the  game,  and  mention 
is  made  in  the  newspapers  the  next  morning  of 
the  fast  base  running  of  the  club.  A  man  has 
covered  ninety  feet  of  ground  while  the  ball  is 
travelling  from  the  pitcher  to  the  catcher  and  back 
to  the  fielder  who  is  guarding  second  base.  It  is 
the  most  important  ninety  feet  in  baseball.  From 
second  base  just  one  hit  scores  the  runner.  Steal- 
ing second,  one  of  the  most  picturesque  plays  of 
the  game,  is  the  gentle  art  of  taking  a  chance. 

In  1911,  the  Giants  stole  more  bases  than  any 
other  Big  League  club  has  had  to  its  credit  since 
the  Pirates  established  the  record  in  1903.  De- 
vore,  Snodgrass,  Murray,  Merkle  and  Doyle, 
once  they  got  on  the  bases  were  like  loose  mercury. 
They  couldn't  be  caught.  And  McGraw  stole 
his  way  to  a  pennant  with  this  quintet  of  runners, 
not  alone  because  of  the  number  of  bases  they 


How  Base  Runners  Help  a  Pitcher   257 

pilfered,  but  because  of  the  edge  it  gave  the  Giants 
on  the  rest  of  the  clubs,  with  the  men  with  base- 
stealing  reputations  on  the  team.  I  should  say 
that  holding  these  runners  up  on  the  bases  and 
worrying  about  what  they  were  going  to  do 
reduced  the  efficiency  of  opposing  pitchers  one- 
third. 

It  was  n't  the  speed  of  the  men  that  accounted 
for  the  record.  A  sprinter  may  get  into  the  Big 
League  and  never  steal  a  base.  But  it  was  the 
McGraw  system  combined  with  their  natural 
ability. 

"Get  the  start,"  reiterates  McGraw.  "Half 
of  base  stealing  is  leaving  the  bag  at  the  right  time. 
Know  when  you  have  a  good  lead  and  then  never 
stop  until  you  have  hit  the  dirt. " 

It  is  up  to  the  pitcher  as  much  as  the  catcher 
to  stop  base  stealing,  for  once  a  club  begins 
running  wild  on  another,  the  bats  might  as  well  be 
packed  up  and  the  game  conceded.  Pitchers 
make  a  study  of  the  individual  runners  and  their 
styles  of  getting  starts.  In  my  mind,  I  know  just 
how  much  of  a  lead  every  base  runner  in  the 
National  League  can  take  on  me  with  impunity. 

"Bob"  Bescher  of  the  Cincinnati  club  was  the 


258  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

leading,  bright,  particular  base-stealing  star  of 
the  National  League  in  the  season  of  1911,  and 
the  secret  of  his  success  was  in  his  start.  He  tries 
to  get  as  big  a  lead  as  possible  with  each  pitch,  and 
then,  when  he  intends  to  leave,  edges  a  couple  of 
feet  farther  than  usual,  catching  the  pitcher 
unawares.  With  the  two  extra  feet,  Bescher  is 
bound  to  get  to  second  base  at  the  same  time  as 
the  ball,  and  no  catcher  in  the  world  can  stop  him. 
Therefore,  it  is  up  to  the  pitcher  to  keep  him  from 
getting  this  start — the  two  more  feet  he  seeks. 
I  know  that  Bescher  can  take  ten  feet  from  the 
bag  when  I  am  pitching  and  get  back  safely.  But, 
I  am  equally  sure  that,  if  he  makes  his  lead  twelve 
feet  and  I  notice  it,  I  can  probably  catch  him. 
As  a  good  ribbon  salesman  constantly  has  in  his 
mind's  eye  the  answer  to  the  question,  "How  far 
is  a  yard?"  so  I  know  at  a  glance  exactly  how  far 
Bescher  can  lead  and  get  back  safely,  when  he  is 
on  first  base.  If  I  glance  over  and  see  him  twelve 
feet  away  from  the  bag  and  about  to  start,  I  turn 
and  throw  and  catch  him  flat-footed.  The  crowd 
laughs  at  him  and  says : 

"Bescher  asleep  at  the  switch  again!" 

The  real  truth  is  that  Bescher  was  not  asleep, 


How  Base  Runners  Help  a  Pitcher   259 

but  trying  to  get  that  old  jump  which  would  have 
meant  the  stolen  base.  Again,  he  takes  the  twelve 
feet,  and  I  don't  perceive  it.  He  gets  started 
with  my  arm  and  goes  into  the  bag  ahead  of  the 
ball. 

"Great  base  runner,*'  comments  the  fickle 
crowd. 

Bescher  has  only  accomplished  what  he  was 
trying  to  do  before,  but  he  has  gotten  away  with  it 
this  time.  Being  a  great  ball-player  is  the  gentle 
art  of  getting  away  with  it. 

Spectators  often  wonder  why  a  pitcher  wearies 
them  with  throwing  over  to  the  first  base  many 
times,  when  it  is  plain  to  see  that  he  has  no  chance 
of  catching  his  quarry.  "Bill "  Dahlen  used  to  be 
one  of  the  best  men  in  the  game  for  getting  back 
in  some  way  when  on  base,  employing  a  straddle 
slide  and  just  hooking  the  bag  with  his  toe, 
leaving  "a  shoe-string  to  touch. "  The  result  was 
that  he  was  always  handing  the  pitcher  the  laugh 
as  he  brushed  himself  off,  for  none  can  say 
Dahlen  was  not  an  immaculate  ball-player. 

But  the  pitchers  found  out  that  they  could  tire 
Dahlen  out  by  repeatedly  throwing  over  to  the 
bag,  and  that,  after  five  throws,  which  required 


260  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

five  dashes  and  slides  back  to  the  base,  he  was  all 
in  and  could  not  steal  because  he  did  n't  have  the 
physical  strength  left.  Thus,  as  soon  as  Dahlen 
got  on,  a  pitcher  began  throwing  over  until  he  had 
him  tired  out,  and  then  he  pitched  to  the  batter. 
So  "Bill"  crossed  them  by  living  on  the  bag  until 
he  thought  he  saw  his  opportunity  to  get  the  jump, 
and  then  he  would  try  to  steal. 

Few  good  base  runners  watch  the  ball  after 
they  have  once  left  the  bag.  They  look  at  the 
baseman  to  see  how  he  is  playing  and  make  the 
slide  accordingly.  If  Devore  sees  Huggins  of 
St.  Louis  behind  the  base,  he  slides  in  front  and 
pulls  his  body  away  from  the  bag,  so  that  he  leaves 
the  smallest  possible  area  to  touch.  If  he  observes 
the  baseman  cutting  inside  to  block  him  off,  he 
goes  behind  and  hooks  it  with  just  one  toe,  again 
presenting  the  minimum  touching  surface.  If  the 
ball  is  hit  while  the  runner  is  en  route,  he  takes 
one  quick  glance  at  the  coacher  on  the  third  base 
line  and  can  tell  by  his  motions  whether  to  turn 
back  or  to  continue. 

McGraw  devotes  half  his  time  and  energy  in  the 
spring  to  teaching  his  men  base  running  and  the 
art  of  sliding,  which,  when  highly  cultivated, 


How  Base  Runners  Help  a  Pitcher   261 

means  being  there  with  one  toe  and  somewhere 
else  with  the  rest  of  the  body.  But  most  of  all  he 
impresses  on  the  athletes  the  necessity  of  getting 
the  start  before  making  the  attempt  to  steal.  As 
long  as  I  live  I  shall  believe  that  if  Snodgrass  had 
known  he  had  the  jump  in  the  third  game  of  the 
world's  series  in  1911,  when  he  really  had  it,  and 
if  he  had  taken  advantage  of  it,  we  would  have 
won  the  game  and  possibly  the  championship. 
It  was  in  the  contest  that  Baker  balanced  by 
banging  the  home  run  into  the  right  field  bleachers 
in  the  ninth  inning,  when  I  was  pitching.  That 
tied  the  score,  I  to  I. 

For  nine  innings  I  had  been  pitching  myself  out, 
putting  everything  that  I  had  on  every  ball, 
because  the  team  gave  me  no  lead  to  rest  on. 
When  Baker  pushed  that  ball  into  the  bleachers 
with  only  two  more  men  to  get  out  to  win  the 
game,  I  was  all  in.  But  I  managed  to  live  through 
the  tenth  with  very  little  on  the  ball,  and  we  came 
to  the  bat.  Snodgrass  got  a  base  on  balls  and 
journeyed  to  second  on  a  sacrifice.  He  was  taking 
a  big  lead  off  the  middle  base  with  the  pitcher's 
motion,  and  running  back  before  the  catcher  got 
the  ball,  because  a  quick  throw  would  have  caught 


262  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

him.  It  was  bad  baseball,  but  he  was  nervous 
with  the  intense  strain  and  over-eager  to  score. 
Then  came  the  time  when  he  took  a  longer  lead 
than  any  other,  and  Lapp,  the  Athletics'  catcher, 
seeing  him,  was  sure  he  was  going  to  steal,  and 
in  his  hurry  to  get  the  ball  away  and  save  the 
game,  let  it  past  him.  Snodgrass  had  the  jump, 
and  probably  would  have  made  the  base  had  he 
kept  on  going,  but  he  had  no  orders  to  steal  and 
had  turned  and  taken  a  step  or  two  back  toward 
second  when  he  saw  Lapp  lose  the  ball.  Again 
he  turned  and  retraced  his  steps,  and  I  never  saw 
a  man  turn  so  slowly,  simply  because  I  realized 
how  important  a  turn  that  was  going  to  be.  Next 
I  looked  at  Lapp  and  saw  him  picking  up  the  ball, 
which  had  rolled  only  about  three  feet  behind  him. 
He  snapped  it  to  third  and  had  Snodgrass  by 
several  feet.  Snodgrass  realized  this  as  he  plunged 
down  the  base  line,  but  he  could  not  stop  and 
permit  himself  to  be  tagged  and  he  could  not  go 
back,  so  he  made  that  historic  slide  which  was 
heard  almost  around  the  world,  cut  off  several 
yards  of  Frank  Baker's  trousers,  and  more  im- 
portant than  the  damage  to  the  uniform,  lost  us 
the  game. 


How  Base  Runners  Help  a  Pitcher   263 

Snodgrass  had  the  jump  in  his  first  start,  and  if 
he  had  kept  right  on  going  he  would  have  made  the 
bag  without  the  aid  of  the  passed  ball,  in  my 
opinion.  But  he  did  not  know  that  he  had  this 
advantage  and  was  on  his  way  back,  when  it  looked 
for  a  minute  as  if  the  Athletics'  catcher  had  made 
a  mistake.  This  really  turned  out  to  be  the 
"break"  in  the  game,  for  it  was  on  that  passed 
ball  that  Snodgrass  was  put  out.  He  would 
probably  have  scored  the  run  which  would  have 
won  the  game  had  he  lived  either  on  second  or 
third  base,  for  a  hit  followed. 

After  losing  the  contest  after  watching  the 
opportunity  thrown  away,  some  fan  called  me  on 
the  te  ephone  that  night,  when  I  was  feeling  in 
anything  but  a  conversational  mood,  and  asked 
me: 

"Was  that  passed  ball  this  afternoon  part  of  the 
Athletics'  inside  game?  Did  Lapp  do  it  on  pur- 
pose?" 

In  passing  I  want  to  put  in  a  word  for  Snodgrass, 
not  because  he  is  a  team-mate  of  mine,  but  on 
account  of  the  criticism  which  he  received  for 
spiking  Baker,  and  which  was  not  deserved.  And 
in  that  word  I  do  not  want  to  detract  from  Baker's 


264  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

reputation  a  scintilla,  if  I  could,  for  he  is  a  great 
ball-player.  But  I  want  to  say  that  if  John 
Murray  had  ever  been  called  upon  to  slide  into 
that  bag  with  Baker  playing  it  as  he  did,  Baker 
would  probably  have  been  found  cut  in  halves, 
and  only  Murray's  own  style  of  coasting  would 
have  been  responsible  for  it.  If  Fred  Clarke  of 
Pittsburg  had  been  the  man  coming  in,  Baker 
would  probably  have  been  neatly  cut  into  thirds, 
one  third  with  each  foot. 

Clarke  is  known  as  one  of  the  most  wicked 
sliders  in  the  National  League.  He  jumps  into  the 
air  and  spreads  his  feet  apart,  showing  his  spikes 
as  he  comes  in.  The  Giants  were  playing  in 
Pittsburg  several  years  ago,  before  I  was  married, 
and  there  was  a  friend  of  mine  at  the  ball  park 
with  whom  I  was  particularly  eager  to  make  a  hit. 
The  game  was  close,  as  are  all  contests  which  lend 
themselves  readily  to  an  anecdote,  and  Clarke 
got  as  far  as  third  base  in  the  eighth  inning,  with 
the  score  tied  and  two  out.  Warner,  the  Giants' 
catcher,  let  one  get  past  him  and  I  ran  in  to  cover 
the  plate.  Clarke  came  digging  for  home  and,  as 
I  turned  to  touch  him,  he  slid  and  cut  my  trousers 
off,  never  touching  my  legs.  It  was  small  consola- 


How  Base  Runners  Help  a  Pitcher   265 

tion  to  me  that  my  stems  were  still  whole  and  that 
the  umpire  had  called  Clarke  out  and  that  the 
game  was  yet  saved.  My  love  for  my  art  is  keen, 
but  it  stops  at  a  certain  point,  and  that  point  is 
where  I  have  to  send  a  hurry  call  for  a  barrel  and 
the  team's  tailor.  The  players  made  a  sort  of 
group  around  me  while  I  did  my  Lady  Godiva  act 
from  the  plate  to  the  bench. 

Murray  has  the  ideal  slide  for  a  base  gatherer, 
but  one  which  commands  the  respect  of  all  the 
guardians  of  the  sacks  in  the  National  League. 
When  about  eight  feet  from  the  bag,  he  jumps  into 
the  air,  giving  the  fielder  a  vision  of  two  sets  of 
nicely  honed  spikes  aimed  for  the  base.  As 
Murray  hits  the  bag,  he  comes  up  on  his  feet  and 
is  in  a  position  to  start  for  the  next  station  in  case 
of  any  fumble  or  slip.  He  is  a  great  man  to  use 
this  slide  to  advantage  against  young  players,  who 
are  inclined  to  be  timid  when  they  see  those  spikes. 
It 's  all  part  of  the  game  as  it  is  played  in  the  large 
leagues. 

The  Boston  team  was  trying  out  a  young  player 
two  years  ago.  Murray  remarked  to  McGraw 
before  the  game : 

"The    first    time    I    get    on,    I    bet    I    can 


266  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

make  that  fellow  fumble  and  pick  up  an  extra 
base." 

"Theatre  tickets  for  the  crowd  on  Saturday 
night?"  inquired  McGraw. 

"You  Ve  said  it, "  answered  Murray. 

Along  about  the  second  or  third  inning  John 
walked,  and  started  for  second  on  the  first  ball 
pitched.  The  busher  came  in  to  cover  the  base, 
and  Murray  leaped  clear  of  the  ground  and  yelled : 

"Look  out!" 

The  newcomer  evidently  thought  that  Murray 
had  lost  control  of  his  legs,  got  one  look  at  those 
spikes,  and  bent  all  his  energies  toward  dodging 
them,  paying  no  attention  whatever  to  the  ball, 
which  continued  its  unmolested  journey  to  centre 
field.  The  new  man  proved  to  be  one  of  the  best 
little  dodgers  I  ever  saw.  John  was  in  a  perfect 
position  to  start  and  went  along  to  third  at  his 
leisure. 

"Didn't  I  call  the  turn?"  Murray  yelled  at 
McGraw  as  he  came  to  the  bench. 

"What  show  do  you  want  to  see?"  asked 
McGraw. 

But  on  an  old  campaigner  this  show  of  spikes 
has  no  effect  whatever.  The  capable  basemen 


How  Base  Runners  Help  a  Pitcher   267 

in  the  League  know  how  to  cover  the  bag  so  as  to 
get  the  runner  out  and  still  give  him  room  to  come 
in  without  hurting  any  one.  In  spite  of  an  im- 
pression that  prevails  to  the  contrary,  ball-players 
never  spike  a  man  on  purpose.  At  present,  I 
don't  believe  there  is  a  runner  in  the  National 
League  who  would  cut  down  another  man  if  he  had 
the  opportunity.  If  one  man  does  spike  another 
accidentally,  he  is  heartily  sorry,  and  often  such  an 
event  affects  his  own  playing  and  his  base  running 
ability. 

The  feet-first  slide  is  now  more  in  vogue  in  the 
Big  Leagues  than  the  old  head-first  coast,  and  I 
attribute  this  to  two  causes.  One  is  that  the  show 
of  the  spikes  is  a  sort  of  assurance  the  base  runner 
is  going  to  have  room  to  come  into  the  bag,  and 
the  second  is  that  the  great  amount  of  armor 
which  a  catcher  wears  in  these  latter  days  makes 
some  such  formidable  slide  necessary  when  coming 
into  the  plate. 

If  a  base  runner  hits  a  catcher  squarely  with  his 
shin  guards  on,  he  is  likely  to  be  badly  injured, 
and  he  must  be  sure  that  the  catcher  is  going  to 
give  him  a  clear  path.  Some  catchers  block  off 
the  plate  so  that  a  man  has  got  to  shoot  his  spikes 


268  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

at  them  to  get  through,  and  I  'm  not  saying  that 
it 's  bad  catching,  because  that  is  the  way  to  keep 
a  man  from  scoring.  Make  him  go  around  if 
possible. 

But  the  game  has  changed  in  the  last  few  years 
as  far  as  intentional  spiking  goes.  Many  a  time» 
when  I  first  started  with  the  Giants,  I  heard 
a  base  runner  shout  at  a  fielder: 

"Get  out  of  the  way  there  or  I  '11  cut  you  in 
two!" 

And  he  would  not  have  hesitated  to  do  it, 
either.  That  was  part  of  the  game.  But  nowa- 
days, if  a  player  got  the  reputation  of  cutting  men 
down  and  putting  star  players  out  of  the  game  in- 
tentionally, he  would  soon  be  driven  out  of  the 
League,  probably  on  a  stretcher. 

When  John  Hummel  of  the  Brooklyn  club 
spiked  Doyle  in  1908,  and  greatly  lessened  the 
Giants'  chances  of  winning  the  pennant,  which  the 
club  ultimately  lost,  he  came  around  to  our  club- 
house after  the  game  and  inquired  for  Larry. 
When  he  found  how  badly  Doyle  was  cut,  he  was 
as  broken  up  as  any  member  of  our  team. 

"If  I  'd  known  I  was  goin'  to  cut  you,  Larry, 
I  would  n't  have  slid, "  he  said. 


How  Base  Runners  Help  a  Pitcher   269 

"That 's  all  right, "  answered  Doyle.  "I  guess 
I  was  blockin'  you." 

Ball-players  don't  say  much  in  a  situation  of  that 
kind.  But  each  one  who  witnessed  the  incident 
knew  that  when  Doyle  doubled  down,  spiked, 
most  of  our  chances  of  the  pennant  went  down 
with  him,  for  it  broke  up  the  infield  of  the  team 
at  a  most  important  moment.  It  takes  some  time 
for  a  new  part  to  work  into  a  clock  so  that  it  keeps 
perfect  time  again,  no  matter  how  delicate  is  the 
workmanship  of  the  new  part.  So  the  best  in- 
fielder  takes  time  to  fit  into  the  infield  of  a  Big 
League  club  and  have  it  hit  on  all  four  cylinders 
again. 

Fred  Merkle  is  one  of  the  few  ball-players  who 
still  prefers  the  head-first  slide,  and  he  sticks  to  it 
only  on  certain  occasions.  He  is  the  best  man  to 
steal  third  base  playing  ball  to-day.  He  declares 
that,  when  he  is  going  into  the  bag,  he  can  see 
better  by  shooting  his  head  first  and  that  he  can 
swing  his  body  away  from  the  base  and  just  hook 
it  with  one  finger  nail,  leaving  just  that  to  touch. 
And  he  keeps  his  nails  clipped  short  in  the  season, 
so  that  there  is  very  little  exposed  to  which  the 
ball  can  be  applied.  If  he  sees  that  the  third 


270  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

baseman  is  playing  inside  the  bag,  he  goes  behind 
it  and  hooks  it  with  his  finger,  and  if  the  man  is 
playing  back,  he  cuts  through  in  front,  pulling  his 
body  away  from  the  play.  But  the  common  or 
garden  variety  of  player  will  take  the  hook  slide, 
feet  first,  because  he  can  catch  the  bag  with  one 
leg,  and  the  feet  are  n't  as  tender  a  portion  of  the 
anatomy  to  be  roughly  touched  as  the  head  and 
shoulders. 

A  club  of  base  runners  will  do  more  to  help  a 
pitcher  win  than  a  batting  order  of  hard  hitters,  I 
believe.  Speed  is  the  great  thing  in  the  baseball 
of  to-day.  By  speed  I  do  not  mean  that  good  men 
must  be  sprinters  alone.  They  must  be  fast 
starters,  fast  runners  and  fast  thinkers.  Remem- 
ber that  last  one — fast  thinkers. 

Harry  McCormick,  formerly  the  left-fielder  on 
the  Giants,  when  he  joined  the  club  before  his 
legs  began  to  go  bad,  was  a  sprinter,  one  of  the 
fastest  men  who  ever  broke  into  the  League. 
Before  he  took  up  baseball  as  a  profession,  he  had 
been  a  runner  in  college.  But  McCormick  was 
never  a  brilliant  base  stealer  because  he  could 
not  get  the  start. 

When  a  man  is  pitching  for  a  club  of  base 


How  Base  Runners  Help  a  Pitcher   271 

runners  he  knows  that  every  time  a  player  with  a 
stealing  reputation  gets  on  and  there  is  an  outside 
chance  of  his  scoring,  the  run  is  going  to  be  hung 
up.  The  tallies  give  a  pitcher  confidence  to 
proceed.  Then,  when  the  club  has  the  reputation 
of  possessing  a  great  bunch  of  base  runners,  the 
other  pitcher  is  worried  all  the  time  and  has  to 
devote  about  half  his  energies  to  watching  the 
bases.  This  makes  him  easier  to  hit. 

But  put  a  hard  hitter  who  is  a  slow  base  runner 
on  the  club,  and  he  does  little  good.  There  used  to 
be  a  man  on  the  Giants,  named  "Charley"  Hick- 
man,  who  played  third  base  and  then  the  outfield. 
He  was  one  of  the  best  natural  hitters  who  ever 
wormed  his  way  into  baseball,  but  when  he  got  on, 
the  bases  were  blocked.  He  could  not  run,  and  it 
took  a  hit  to  advance  him  a  base.  Get  a  fast  man 
on  behind  him  and,  because  the  rules  of  the  game 
do  not  permit  one  runner  to  pass  another,  it  was 
like  having  a  freight  train  preceding  the  Twentieth 
Century  Limited  on  a  single  track  road.  Hickman 
was  not  so  slow  when  he  first  started,  but  after  a 
while  his  legs  went  bad  and  his  weight  increased, 
so  that  he  was  built  like  a  box  car,  to  carry  out  the 
railroad  figure. 


272  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

Hickman  finally  dropped  back  into  the  minor 
leagues  and  continued  to  bat  three  hundred,  but 
he  had  to  lose  the  ball  to  make  the  journey  clear 
around  the  bases  on  one  wallop.  Once  he  hit 
the  old  flag  pole  in  centre  field  at  the  Polo  Grounds 
on  the  fly,  and  just  did  nose  the  ball  out  at  the 
plate.  It  was  a  record  hit  for  distance.  At  last, 
while  still  maintaining  the  three-hundred  pace, 
Hickman  was  dropped  by  the  Toledo  club  of  the 
American  Association. 

"Why  did  you  let  Charley  Hickman  go?"  I 
asked  the  manager  one  day. 

"Because  he  was  tyin*  up  traffic  on  the  bases," 
he  replied. 

Merkle  is  not  a  particularly  fast  runner,  but  he 
is  a  great  base  stealer  because  he  has  acquired  the 
knack  of  "getting  away. "  He  never  tries  to  steal 
until  he  has  his  start.  He  is  also  a  good  arriver, 
as  I  have  pointed  out.  It  was  like  getting  a  steam- 
roller in  motion  to  start  Hickman. 

Clever  ball-players  and  managers  are  always 
trying  to  evolve  new  base-running  tactics  that  will 
puzzle  the  other  team,  but  "there  ain't  no  new 
stuff."  It  is  a  case  of  digging  up  the  old  ones. 
Pitchers  are  also  earnest  in  their  endeavors  to 


How  Base  Runners  Help  a  Pitcher   273 

discover  improved  ways  to  stop  base  running. 
Merkle  and  I  worked  out  a  play  during  the  spring 
training  season  in  1911  which  caught  perhaps  a 
dozen  men  off  first  base  before  the  other  teams 
began  to  watch  for  the  trick.  And  it  was  not 
original  with  me.  I  got  the  idea  from  "Patsy" 
Flaherty,  a  Boston  pitcher  who  has  his  salary 
wing  fastened  to  his  left  side. 

Flaherty  would  pitch  over  to  first  base  quickly, 
and  the  fielder  would  shoot  the  ball  back.  Then 
Flaherty  would  pop  one  through  to  the  batter, 
often  catching  him  off  his  guard,  and  sneaking  a 
strike  over  besides  leaving  the  runner  flat  on  the 
ground  in  the  position  in  which  he  had  been  when 
he  slid  back  to  the  bag.  If  the  batter  hit  the  ball, 
the  runner  was  in  no  attitude  to  get  a  start,  and, 
on  an  infield  tap,  it  was  easy  to  make  a  double  play. 

The  next  time  that  the  man  got  on  base,  Flaherty 
would  shoot  the  ball  over  to  first  as  before,  and  the 
runner  would  be  up  on  his  feet  and  away  from  the 
bag,  expecting  him  to  throw  it  to  the  plate.  But 
as  the  first  baseman  whipped  it  back  quickly 
Flaherty  returned  the  ball  and  the  runner  was 
caught  flat  footed  and  made  to  look  foolish.  Ball- 
players do  certainly  hate  to  appear  ridiculous,  and 


274  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

the  laugh  from  the  crowd  upsets  a  Big  Leaguer 
more  than  anything  else,  even  a  call  from  McGraw, 
because  the  crowd  cannot  hear  that  and  does  not 
know  the  man  is  looking  foolish. 

It  was  almost  impossible  to  steal  bases  on 
"  Patsy  "  Flaherty  because  he  had  the  men  hugging 
the  bag  all  the  time,  and  if  he  had  had  other  essen- 
tials of  a  pitcher,  he  would  have  been  a  great  one. 
He  even  lived  in  the  Big  League  for  some  time  with 
this  quick  throw  as  his  only  asset.  I  adopted  the 
Flaherty  movement,  but  it  is  harder  for  a  right- 
hander to  use,  as  he  is  not  in  such  a  good  position 
to  whip  the  ball  to  the  bag.  Merkle  and  I 
rehearsed  it  in  spring  practice.  As  soon  as  a  man 
got  on  first  base,  I  popped  the  ball  over  to  Merkle, 
and  without  even  making  a  stab  at  the  runner,  he 
shot  it  to  me.  Then  back  again,  just  as  the  runner 
had  let  go  of  the  bag  and  was  getting  up.  The 
theoretical  result:  He  was  caught  flat-footed. 
Sometimes  it  worked.  Then  they  began  to  play 
for  me. 

Another  play  on  which  the  changes  have  often 
been  rung  is  the  double  steal  with  men  on  first  and 
third  bases.  That  is  McGraw's  favorite  situation 
in  a  crisis. 


How  Base  Runners  Help  a  Pitcher  275 

"Somebody  's  got  to  look  foolish  on  the  play," 
says  "Mac,"  "and  I  don't  want  to  furnish  any 
laughs." 

The  old  way  to  work  it  was  to  have  the  man  on 
first  start  for  second,  as  if  he  were  going  to  make  a 
straight  steal.  Then  as  soon  as  the  catcher  drew 
his  arm  back  to  throw,  the  runner  on  third  started 
home.  No  Big  League  club  can  have  a  look  into 
the  pennant  set  without  trying  to  interrupt  the 
journey  of  that  man  going  to  second  in  a  tight 
place,  because  if  no  play  is  made  for  him  and  a  hit 
follows,  it  nets  the  club  two  runs  instead  of  one. 

Most  teams  try  to  stop  this  play  by  having  the 
shortstop  or  second  baseman  come  in  and  take  a 
short  throw,  and  if  the  man  on  third  breaks  for 
home,  the  receiver  of  the  ball  whips  it  back.  If 
both  throws  are  perfect,  the  runner  is  caught  at 
the  plate. 

But  the  catchers  found  that  certain  clubs  were 
making  this  play  in  routine  fashion,  the  runner  on 
first  starting  with  the  pitch,  and  the  one  on  third 
making  his  break  just  as  soon  as  the  catcher  drew 
back  his  arm.  Then  the  backstops  began  making 
a  bluff  throw  to  second  and  whipping  the  ball  to 
third,  often  getting  the  runner  by  several  feet, 


276  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

as  he  had  already  definitely  started  for  the 
plate. 

"Tommy"  Leach  of  the  Pittsburg  club  was 
probably  caught  of  tener  on  this  bluff  throw  than 
any  other  man  in  baseball.  For  some  time  he  had 
been  making  the  play  against  clubs  which  used  the 
short  throw,  and  starting  as  the  catcher  drew  back 
his  arm,  as  that  was  the  only  chance  he  had  to 
score.  One  day  in  the  season  of  1908,  when  the 
Pirates  were  playing  against  the  Giants,  Clarke 
was  on  first  and  Leach  on  third,  with  one  run 
required  to  balance  the  game.  McGraw  knew  the 
double  steal  was  to  be  expected,  as  two  were  out. 
Bresnahan  was  aware  of  this,  too. 

McGinnity  was  pitching,  and  with  his  motion, 
Clarke  got  his  start.  Bresnahan  drew  back  his 
arm  as  if  to  throw  to  second,  and  true  to  form, 
Leach  was  on  his  way  to  the  plate.  But  Bresna- 
han had  not  let  go  of  the  ball,  and  he  shot  it  to 
Devlin,  Leach  being  run  down  in  the  base  line  and 
the  Pittsburg  club  eventually  losing  the  game. 

Again  and  again  Leach  fell  for  this  bluff  throw, 
until  the  news  spread  around  the  circuit  that  once 
a  catcher  drew  back  his  arm  with  a  man  on  first 
base  and  "Tommy"  Leach  on  third,  there  would 


How  Base  Runners  Help  a  Pitcher   277 

be  no  holding  him  on  the  bag.  He  was  caught 
time  and  again — indeed  as  frequently  as  the  play 
came  up.  It  was  his  "groove."  He  could  not 
be  stopped  from  making  his  break.  At  last 
Clarke  had  to  order  him  to  abandon  the  play  until 
he  could  cure  himself  of  this  self-starting  habit. 

"What  you  want  to  do  on  that  play  is  cross  'em," 
is  McGraw's  theory,  and  he  proceeded  to  develop 
the  delayed  steal  with  this  intent. 

Put  the  men  back  on  first  and  third  bases. 
Thank  you.  The  pitcher  has  the  ball.  The 
runner  on  first  intentionally  takes  too  large  a  lead. 
The  pitcher  throws  over,  and  he  moves  a  few  steps 
toward  second.  Then  a  few  more.  All  that  time 
the  man  on  third  is  edging  off  an  inch,  two  inches, 
a  foot.  The  first  baseman  turns  to  throw  to 
second  to  stop  that  man.  The  runner  on  third 
plunges  for  the  plate,  and  usually  gets  there.  It 's 
a  hard  one  to  stop,  but  that 's  its  purpose. 

Then,  again,  it  can  be  worked  after  the  catcher 
gets  the  ball.  The  runner  starts  from  first  slowly 
and  the  catcher  hesitates,  not  knowing  whether 
to  throw  to  first  or  second.  Since  the  runner  did 
not  start  with  the  pitch,  theoretically  no  one  has 
come  in  to  take  a  short  throw,  and  the  play  cannot 


278  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

be  made  back  to  the  plate  if  the  ball  is  thrown  to 
second.  This  form  of  the  play  is  usually  success- 
ful. Miller  Huggins  is  one  of  the  hardest  second 
basemen  in  the  League  to  work  it  against  success- 
fully. With  men  on  first  and  third,  he  always 
comes  in  for  the  short  throw  on  the  chance,  and 
covers  himself  up. 

After  we  had  stolen  our  way  to  a  pennant  in  the 
National  League  in  the  season  of  1911,  and  after 
our  five  leading  base  runners  had  been  "mugged" 
by  the  police  in  St.  Louis  so  that  the  catchers 
would  know  them,  many  fans  expected  to  see  us 
steal  a  world's  championship,  and  we"  half  ex- 
pected it  ourselves. 

But  so  did  "Connie"  Mack,  and  there  lies  the 
answer.  He  knew  our  strong  point,  and  his 
players  had  discussed  and  rehearsed  ways  and 
means  to  break  up  our  game.  Mack  had  been 
watching  the  Giants  for  weeks  previous  to  the 
series  and  had  had  his  spies  taking  notes. 

"We  've  got  to  stop  them  running  bases,"  he 
told  his  men  before  the  first  game,  I  have  learned 
since.  And  they  did.  Guess  the  St.  Louis  police 
must  have  sent  Thomas  and  Lapp  copies  of  those 
pictures. 


How  Base  Runners  Help  a  Pitcher  279 

Mack's  pitchers  cut  their  motions  down  to 
nothing  with  men  on  the  bases,  microscopic 
motions,  and  they  watched  the  runners  like  hawks. 
Thomas  had  been  practising  to  get  the  men.  The 
first  time  that  Devore  made  a  break  to  steal,  he 
was  caught  several  feet  from  the  bag. 

"And  you  call  yourself  fast!"  commented 
Collins  as  he  threw  the  ball  back  to  the  pitcher 
and  jogged  to  his  job?  "You  remind  me  of 
a  cop  on  a  fixed  post,"  he  flung  over  his 
shoulder. 

Pitchers  have  a  great  deal  to  do  with  the  defen- 
sive efficiency  of  the  club.  If  they  do  not  hold  the 
runners  up,  the  best  catcher  in  the  world  cannot 
stop  them  at  their  destination.  That  is  the  reason 
why  so  many  high-class  catchers  have  been  devel- 
oped by  the  Chicago  Cubs.  The  team  has  always 
had  a  good  pitching  staff,  and  men  like  Overall, 
Brown  and  Reulbach  force  the  runners  to  stick 
to  the  oases  of  safety. 

The  Giants  stole  their  way  to  a  pennant  in  191 1 , 
and  it  was  n't  on  account  of  the  speedy  material, 
but  because  McGraw  had  spent  days  teaching  his 
men  to  slide  and  emphasizing  the  necessity  of 
getting  the  jump.  Then  he  picked  the  stages  of 


28o  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

the  game  when  the  attempts  to  steal  were  to  be 
made.  But  McGraw,  with  his  all-star  cast  of 
thieves,  was  stopped  in  the  world's  series  by  one 
Cornelius  McGillicuddy. 


XIII 

Notable  Instances  Where  the  "Inside" 
Game  Has  Failed 

The  "Inside"  Game  is  of  Little  Avail  when  a  Batter 
Knocks  a  Home  Run  with  the  Bases  Full — Many 
Times  the  Strategies  of  Managers  have  Failed 
because  Opposing  Clubs  "Doctored"  their 
Grounds— " Rube"  Waddell  Once  Cost  the  Athletics 
a  Game  by  Failing  to  Show  up  after  the  Pitcher's 
Box  had  been  Fixed  for  Him — But,  although  the 
"Inside"  Game  Sometimes  Fails,  no  Manager 
Wants  a  Player  who  will  Steal  Second  with  the 
Bases  Full 

'"THERE  is  an  old  story  about  an  altercation 

*       which  took  place  during  a  wedding  ceremony 

in  the  backwoods  of  the  Virginia  mountains.     The 

discussion  started  over  the  propriety  of  the  best 

man  holding  the  ring,  and  by  the  time  that  it  had 

been  finally  settled  the  bride  gazed  around  on  a 

281 


282  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

dead  bridegroom,  a  dead  father,  and  a  dead  best 
man,  not  to  mention  three  or  four  very  dead 
ushers  and  a  clergyman. 

"Them  new  f angled  self-cockin'  automatic  guns 
has  sure  raised  hell  with  my  prospects, "  she  sighed. 

That 's  the  way  I  felt  when  John  Franklin  Baker 
popped  that  home  run  into  the  right-field  stand  in 
the  ninth  inning  of  the  third  game  of  the  1911 
world's  series  with  one  man  already  out.  For 
eight  and  one-third  innnings  the  Giants  had  played 
"inside"  ball,  and  I  had  carefully  nursed  along 
every  batter  who  came  to  the  plate,  studying  his 
weakness  and  pitching  at  it.  It  looked  as  if  we 
were  going  to  win  the  game,  and  then  zing !  And 
also  zowie !  The  ball  went  into  the  stand  on  a  line 
and  I  looked  around  at  my  fielders  who  had  had 
the  game  almost  within  their  grasp  a  minute 
before.  Instantly,  I  realized  that  I  had  been  pitch- 
ing myself  out,  expecting  the  end  to  come  in  nine 
innings.  My  arm  felt  like  so  much  lead  hanging 
to  my  side  after  that  hit.  I  wanted  to  go  and  get 
some  crape  and  hang  it  on  my  salary  whip.  Then 
that  old  story  about  the  wedding  popped  into  my 
head,  and  I  said  to  myself  : 

"  He  has  sure  raised  hell  with  your  prospects. " 


Failures  of  the  "  Inside"  Game    283 

"Sam"  Strang,  the  official  pinch  hitter  of  the 
Giants  a  few  seasons  ago,  was  one  of  the  best  in  the 
business.  McGraw  sent  him  to  the  bat  in  the 
ninth  inning  of  a  game  the  Giants  were  playing 
in  Brooklyn.  We  were  two  runs  behind  and  two 
were  already  out,  with  one  runner  on  the  bases,  and 
he  was  only  as  far  as  second.  "Doc"  Scanlon 
was  pitching  for  Brooklyn,  and,  evidently  intimi- 
dated by  Sam's  pinch-hitting  reputation  or  some- 
thing, suddenly  became  wild  and  gave  the  Giant 
batter  three  balls.  With  the  count  three  and 
nothing,  McGraw  shouted  from  the  bench: 

"Wait  it  out,  Sam!" 

But  Sam  did  not  hear  him,  and  he  took  a  nice 
masculine,  virile,  full-armed  swing  at  the  ball 
and  fouled  it  out  of  the  reach  of  all  the  local 
guardians  of  the  soil. 

"Are  you  deaf?"  barked  McGraw.  "Wait  it 
out,  I  tell  you." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Strang  was  a  little  deaf  and 
did  not  hear  the  shouted  instructions  the  second 
time.  But  "Doc"  Scanlon  was  sensitive  as  to 
hearing  and,  feeling  sure  Strang  would  obey  the 
orders  of  McGraw,  thought  he  would  be  taking  no 
chances  in  putting  the  next  ball  over  the  centre  of 


284  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

the  plate.  It  came  up  the  "groove, "  and  Strang 
admired  it  as  it  approached.  Then  he  took  his 
swing,  and  the  next  place  the  ball  touched  was 
in  the  Italian  district  just  over  the  right  field  fence. 
The  hit  tied  the  score. 

McGraw  met  Strang  at  the  plate,  and  instead 
of  greeting  him  with  shouts  of  approbation, 
exclaimed : 

"I  ought  to  fine  you  $25,  and  would,  except  for 
those  two  runs  and  the  few  points'  difference  the 
game  will  make  in  the  percentage.  Come  on  now, 
boys.  Let 's  win  this  one."  And  we  did  in  the 
eleventh  inning. 

That  was  a  case  of  the  "inside"  game  failing. 
Any  Big  League  pitcher  with  brains  would  have 
laid  the  ball  over  after  hearing  McGraw  shout 
earnest  and  direct  orders  at  the  batter  to  "wait 
it  out."  Scanlon  was  playing  the  game  and 
Strang  was  not,  but  it  broke  for  Sam.  It  was  the 
first  time  in  his  life  that  he  ever  hit  the  ball  over 
the  right  field  fence  in  Brooklyn,  and  he  has  never 
done  it  since.  If  he  had  not  been  lucky  in  con- 
necting with  that  ball  and  lifting  it  where  it  did 
the  most  good,  his  pay  envelope  would  have  been 
lighter  by  $25  at  the  end  of  the  month,  and  he 


Failures  of  the  " Inside"  Game    285 

would  have  obtained  an  accurate  idea  of  McGraw's 
opinion  of  his  intellectuality. 

In  the  clubhouse  after  the  victory,  McGraw 
said: 

"Honest,  Sam,  why  did  you  swing  at  that  ball 
after  I  had  told  you  not  to?  " 

"I  did  n't  hear  you, "  replied  Strang. 

"  Well,  it 's  lucky  you  hit  it  where  they  were  n't, " 
answered  McGraw,  "because  if  any  fielder  had 
connected  with  the  ball,  there  would  have  been  a 
rough  greeting  waiting  for  you  on  the  bench. 
And  as  a  tip,  Sam,  direct  from  me :  You  got  away 
with  it  once,  but  don't  try  it  again.  It  was  bad 
baseball." 

"But  that  straight  one  looked  awful  good  to  me 
coming  up  the  'groove,' "  argued  Sam. 

"Don't  fall  for  all  the  good  lookers,  Sam," 
suggested  McGraw,  the  philosopher. 

Strang  is  now  abroad  having  his  voice  cultivated 
and  he  intends  to  enter  the  grand-opera  field  as 
soon  as  he  can  finish  the  spring  training  in  Paris 
and  get  his  throat  into  shape  for  the  big  league 
music  circuit.  But  I  will  give  any  orchestra  leader 
who  faces  Sam  a  tip.  If  he  does  n't  want  him  to 
come  in  strong  where  the  music  is  marked  "rest," 


286  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

don't  put  one  in  the  "groove,"  because  Strang 
just  naturally  can't  help  swinging  at  it.  He  is  a 
poor  waiter. 

The  Boston  club  lost  eighteen  straight  games  in 
the  season  of  1910,  and  as  the  team  was  leaving 
the  Polo  Grounds  after  having  dropped  four 
in  a  row,  making  the  eighteen,  I  said  to 
Tenney: 

"How  does  it  seem,  Fred,  to  be  on  a  club  that 
has  lost  eighteen  straight?" 

"It's  what  General  Sherman  said  war  is," 
replied  Tenney,  who  seldom  swears.  "But  for 
all-around  entertainment  I  would  like  to  see  John 
McGraw  on  a  team  which  had  dropped  fifteen  or 
sixteen  in  a  row. " 

As  if  Tenney  had  put  the  curse  on  us,  the  Giants 
hit  a  losing  streak  the  next  day  that  totalled  six 
games  straight.  Everything  that  we  tried  broke 
against  us.  McGraw  would  attempt  the  double 
steal,  and  both  throws  would  be  accurate,  and  the 
runner  caught  at  the  plate.  A  hit  and  a  run  sign 
would  be  given,  and  the  batter  would  run  up 
against  a  pitch-out. 

McGraw  was  slowly  going  crazy.  All  his  pet 
"inside"  tricks  were  worthless.  He,  the  king  of 


Failures  of  the  "  Inside  "  Game    287 

baseball  clairvoyants,  could  not  guess  right.  It 
began  to  look  to  me  as  if  Tenney  would  get  his 
entertainment.  After  the  sixth  one  had  gone 
against  us  and  McGraw  had  not  spoken  a  friendly 
word  to  any  one  for  a  week,  he  called  the  players 
around  him  in  the  clubhouse. 

"I  ought  to  let  you  all  out  and  get  a  gang  of 
high-school  boys  in  here  to  defend  the  civic  honor 
of  this  great  and  growing  city  whose  municipal 
pride  rests  on  your  shoulders,"  he  said.  "But 
I  'm  not  going  to  do  it.  Hereafter  we  will  cut  out 
all  'inside'  stuff  and  play  straight  baseball. 
Every  man  will  go  up  there  and  hit  the  ball  just 
as  you  see  it  done  on  the  lots. " 

Into  this  oration  was  mixed  a  judicious  amount 
of  sulphur.  The  Cubs  had  just  taken  the  first 
three  of  a  four-game  series  from  us  without  any 
trouble  at  all.  The  next  day  we  went  out  and 
resorted  to  the  wallop,  plain,  untrimmed  slugging 
tactics,  and  beat  Chicago  17  to  i.  Later  we 
returned  to  the  hand-raised,  cultivated  hot-house 
form  of  baseball,  but  for  a  week  we  played  the  old- 
fashioned  game  with  a  great  deal  of  success.  It 
changed  our  luck. 

Another  method  which  has  upset  the  "inside" 


288  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

game  of  many  visiting  teams  is  "doping"  the 
grounds. 

The  first  time  in  my  baseball  career  that  I  ever 
encountered  this  was  in  Brooklyn  when  Hanlon 
was  the  manager.  Every  time  he  thought  I  was 
going  to  pitch  there,  he  would  have  the  diamond 
doctored  for  me  in  the  morning.  The  ground- 
keeper  sank  the  pitcher's  box  down  so  that  it  was 
below  the  level  of  all  the  bases  instead  of  slightly 
elevated  as  it  should  be. 

Hanlon  knew  that  I  used  a  lot  of  speed  when  I 
first  broke  into  the  League,  getting  some  of  it 
from  my  elevation  on  the  diamond.  He  had  a 
team  of  fast  men  who  depended  largely  on  a 
bunting  game  and  their  speed  in  getting  to  first 
base  to  win.  With  me  fielding  bunts  out  of  the 
hollow,  they  had  a  better  chance  of  making  their 
goal.  Then  pitching  from  the  lower  level  would 
naturally  result  in  the  batters  getting  low  balls, 
because  I  would  be  more  apt  to  misjudge  the 
elevation  of  the  plate.  Low  ones  were  made  to 
bunt.  Finally,  Hanlon  always  put  into  the  box 
to  work  against  me  a  little  pitcher  who  was  not 
affected  as  much  as  I  by  the  topographical  changes. 

"Why,"  I  said  to  George  Davis,  the  Giants' 


Failures  of  the  "Inside"  Game    289 

manager,  the  first  time  I  pitched  out  of  the  cellar 
which  in  Brooklyn  was  regarded  as  the  pitcher's 
box,  "  I  'm  throwing  from  a  hollow  instead  of  off  a 
mound." 

"Sure,"  replied  Davis.  "They  'doped'  the 
grounds  for  you.  But  never  mind.  When  we  are 
entertaining,  the  box  at  the  Polo  Grounds  will  be 
built  up  the  days  you  are  going  to  pitch  against 
Brooklyn,  and  you  can  burn  them  over  and  at 
their  heads  if  you  like. " 

The  thing  that  worried  the  Athletics  most  before 
the  last  world's  series  was  the  reputation  of  the 
Giants  as  base  stealers.  When  we  went  to  Phila- 
delphia for  the  first  game,  I  was  surprised  at  the 
heavy  condition  of  the  base  lines. 

"Did  it  rain  here  last  night?"  I  inquired  from 
a  native. 

"No,"  he  answered. 

Then  I  knew  that  the  lines  had  been  wet  down 
to  slow  up  our  fast  runners  and  make  it  harder  for 
them  to  steal.  As  things  developed,  this  pre- 
caution was  unnecessary,  but  it  was  an  effort  to 
break  up  what  was  known  to  be  our  strongest 
"inside"  play. 

Baseball  men  maintain  that  the  acme  of  doctor- 


290  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

ing  grounds  was  the  work  of  the  old  Baltimore 
Orioles.  The  team  was  composed  of  fast  men  who 
were  brilliant  bunters  and  hard  base  runners.  The 
soil  of  the  infield  was  mixed  with  a  form  of  clay 
which,  when  wet  and  then  rolled,  was  almost  as 
hard  as  concrete.  The  ground  outside  the  first 
and  third  base  lines  was  built  up  slightly  to  keep 
well  placed  bunts  from  rolling  foul,  while  toward 
first  base  there  was  a  distinct  down  grade  to  aid 
the  runner  in  reaching  that  station  with  all  possible 
expedition.  Toward  second  there  was  a  gentle 
slope,  and  it  was  down  hill  to  third.  But  coming 
home  from  third  was  up-hill  work.  A  player  had 
to  be  a  mountain  climber  to  make  it.  This  all 
benefited  fast  men  like  Keeler,  McGraw,  Kelley 
and  Jennings  whose  most  dangerous  form  of 
attack  was  the  bunt. 

The  Orioles  did  not  stop  at  doctoring  the  infield. 
The  grass  in  the  outfield  was  permitted  to  grow 
long  and  was  unkempt.  Centre  and  left  fields 
were  kept  level,  but  in  right  field  there  was  a  sharp 
down  grade  to  aid  the  fast  Keeler.  He  had  made 
an  exhaustive  study  of  all  the  possible  angles  at 
which  the  ball  might  bound  and  had  certain  paths 
that  he  followed,  but  which  were  not  marked  out 


Failures  of  the  "Inside"  Game    291 

by  sign  posts  for  visiting  right-fielders.  He  was 
sure  death  on  hits  to  his  territory,  while  usually 
wallops  got  past  visiting  right-fielders.  And  so 
great  was  the  grade  that  "Wee  Willie"  was  barely 
visible  from  the  batter's  box.  A  hitting  team 
coming  to  Baltimore  would  be  forced  to  fall  into 
the  bunting  game  or  be  entirely  outclassed.  And 
the  Orioles  did  not  furnish  their  guests  with  topo- 
graphical maps  of  the  grounds  either. 

The  habit  of  doctoring  grounds  is  not  so  much 
in  vogue  now  as  it  once  was.  For  a  long  time  it 
was  considered  fair  to  arrange  the  home  field  to  the 
best  advantage  of  the  team  which  owned  it,  for 
otherwise  what  was  the  use  in  being  home?  It 
was  on  the  same  principle  that  a  general  builds  his 
breastworks  to  best  suit  the  fighting  style  of  his 
army,  for  they  are  his  breastworks. 

But  lately  among  the  profession,  sentiment  and 
baseball  legislation  have  prevailed  against  the 
doctoring  of  grounds,  and  it  is  done  very  little. 
Occasionally  a  pitching  box  is  raised  or  lowered  to 
meet  the  requirements  of  a  certain  man,  but  they 
are  not  altered  every  day  to  fit  the  pitcher,  as  they 
once  were.  Such  tactics  often  hopelessly  upset 
the  plan  of  battle  of  the  visiting  club  unless  this 


292  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

exactly  coincided  with  the  habits  of  the  home  teanv 
Many  strategic  plans  have  been  wasted  on  care 
fully  arranged  grounds,  and  many  "inside"  plays 
have  gone  by  the  boards  when  the  field  was  fixed 
so  that  a  bunt  was  bound  to  roll  foul  if  the  ball 
followed  the  laws  of  gravitation,  as  it  usually  does, 
because  the  visiting  team  was  known  to  have  the 
bunting  habit. 

A  good  story  of  doctored  grounds  gone  wrong 
is  told  of  the  Philadelphia  Athletics.  The  eccen- 
tric "Rube"  Waddell  had  bundles  of  speed  in  his 
early  days,  and  from  a  slightly  elevated  pitcher's 
box  the  batter  could  scarcely  identify  "Rube's" 
delivery  from  that  of  a  cannon.  He  was  scheduled 
to  pitch  one  day  and  showed  around  at  morning 
practice  looking  unusually  fit  for  George. 

"How  are  you  feeling  to-day,  George?"  asked 
"Connie"  Mack,  his  boss. 

"Never  better,"  replied  the  light-hearted 
"Rube." 

"Well,  you  work  this  afternoon." 

"All  right,"  answered  Waddell. 

Then  the  ground-keeper  got  busy  and  built  the 
pitcher's  box  up  about  two  feet,  so  that  Waddell 
would  have  a  splendid  opportunity  to  cut  loose 


Failures  of  the  "  Inside  "  Game     293 

all  his  speed.  At  that  time  he  happened  to  be  the 
only  tall  man  on  the  pitching  staff  of  the  Philadel- 
phia club,  and,  as  a  rule,  the  box  was  kept  very 
low.  The  scheme  would  probably  have  worked 
out  as  planned,  if  it  had  not  been  that  Waddell,  in 
the  course  of  his  noon-day  wanderings,  met  several 
friends  in  whose  society  he  became  so  deeply 
absorbed  that  he  neglected  to  report  at  the  ball 
park  at  all.  He  also  forgot  to  send  word,  and  here 
was  the  pitcher's  box  standing  up  out  of  the  infield 
like  one  of  the  peaks  of  the  Alps. 

As  the  players  gathered,  and  Waddell  failed  to 
show  up,  the  manager  nervously  looked  at  his 
watch.  At  last  he  sent  out  scouts  to  the ' '  Rube's ' ' 
known  haunts,  but  no  trace  of  the  temperamental 
artist  could  be  found.  The  visitors  were  already 
on  the  field,  and  it  was  too  late  to  lower  the  box. 
A  short  pitcher  had  to  work  in  the  game  from  this 
peak  of  progress,  while  the  opposing  team  installed 
a  skyscraper  on  the  mound.  The  Philadelphia 
club  was  badly  beaten  and  Waddell  heavily  fined 
for  his  carelessness  in  disrupting  the  "inside" 
play  of  his  team. 

An  old  and  favorite  trick  used  to  be  to  soap  the 
soil  around  the  pitcher's  box,  so  that  when  a  mail 


294  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

was  searching  for  some  place  to  dry  his  perspiring 
hands  and  grabbed  up  this  soaped  earth,  it  made 
his  palm  slippery  and  he  was  unable  to  control 
the  ball. 

Of  course,  the  home  talent  knew  where  the  good 
ground  lay  and  used  it  or  else  carried  some  unadul- 
terated earth  in  their  trousers'  pockets,  as  a  sort 
of  private  stock.  But  our  old  friend  "Bugs" 
Raymond  hit  on  a  scheme  to  spoil  this  idea  and 
make  the  trick  useless.  Arthur  always  perspired 
profusely  when  he  pitched,  and  several  managers, 
perceiving  this,  had  made  it  a  habit  to  soap  the 
dirt  liberally  whenever  it  was  his  turn  to  work. 
While  he  was  pitching  for  St.  Louis,  he  went  into 
the  box  against  the  Pirates  one  day  in  Pittsburg. 
His  hands  were  naturally  slippery,  and  several 
times  he  had  complained  that  he  could  not  dry 
them  in  the  dirt,  especially  in  Pittsburg  soil. 

As  Raymond  worked  in  the  game  in  question, 
he  was  noticed,  particularly  by  the  Pittsburg 
batters  and  spectators,  to  get  better  as  he  went 
along.  Frequently,  his  hand  slipped  into  his  back 
pocket,  and  then  his  control  was  wonderful. 
Sometimes,  he  would  reach  down  and  apparently 
pick  up  a  handful  of  earth,  but  it  did  no  damage. 


Failures  of  the  "Inside"  Game    295 

After  the  game,  he  walked  over  to  Fred  Clarke, 
and  reached  into  his  back  pocket.  His  face 
broke  into  a  grin. 

"Ever  see  any  of  that  stuff,  Fred?"  he  asked 
innocently,  showing  the  Pittsburg  manager  a 
handful  of  a  dark  brown  substance.  "That's 
rosin.  It 's  great — lots  better  than  soaped  ground. 
Wish  you  'd  keep  a  supply  out  there  in  the  box 
for  me  when  I  'm  going  to  work  instead  of  that 
slippery  stuff  you  Ve  got  out  there  now.  Will 
you,  as  a  favor  to  me?" 

Thereafter,  all  the  pitchers  got  to  carrying  rosin 
or  pumice  stone  in  their  pockets,  for  the  story 
quickly  went  round  the  circuit,  and  it  is  useless  co 
soap  the  soil  in  the  box  any  more.  There  are  many 
tricks  by  which  the  grounds  or  ball  are  "fixed," 
but  for  nearly  all  an  antidote  has  been  discovered, 
and  these  questionable  forms  of  the  "inside" 
game  have  failed  so  often  that  they  have  largely 
been  abandoned. 

One  Big  League  manager  used  always  to  give  his 
men  licorice  or  some  other  dark  and  adhesive  and 
juicy  substance  to  chew  on  a  dingy  day.  The 
purpose  was  to  dirty  the  ball  so  that  it  was  harder 
for  the  batters  to  see  when  the  pitcher  used  his 


296  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

fast  one.  As  soon  as  a  new  ball  was  thrown  into 
the  game,  it  was  quickly  passed  around  among  the 
fielders,  and  instead  of  being  the  lily-white  thing 
that  left  the  umpire's  hands,  when  it  finally  got 
to  the  pitcher's  box  it  was  a  very  pronounced 
brunette.  But  some  eagle-eyed  arbiter  detected 
this,  and  kept  pouring  new  balls  into  the  game 
when  the  non-licorice  chewers  were  at  the  bat, 
while  he  saved  the  discolored  ones  for  the  consump- 
tion of  the  masticators.  It  was  another  trick  that 
failed. 

Frequently,  backgrounds  are  tampered  with  if 
the  home  club  is  notably  weak  at  the  bat.  The 
best  background  for  a  batter  is  a  dull,  solid  green. 
Many  clubs  have  painted  backgrounds  in  several 
contrasting,  broken  colors  so  that  the  sunlight, 
shining  on  them,  blinds  the  batter.  The  Chicago 
White  Sox  are  said  to  have  done  this,  and  for  many 
years  the  figures  showed  that  the  batting  of  both 
the  Chicago  players  and  the  visitors  at  their  park 
was  very  light.  The  White  Sox's  hitting  was  weak 
anywhere,  so  that  the  poor  background  was  an 
advantage  to  them. 

Injuries  have  often  upset  the  "inside"  play  of  a 
club.  Usually  a  team's  style  revolves  around  one 


Failures  of  the  "  Inside  "  Game     297 

or  two  men,  and  the  taking  of  them  out  of  the 
game  destroys  the  whole  machine.  The  substitute 
does  not  think  as  quickly ;  neither  does  he  see  and 
grasp  the  opportunities  as  readily.  This  was  true 
of  the  Cubs  last  season.  Chance  and  Evers  used 
to  be  the  "inside"  game  of  the  team.  Evers  was 
out  of  the  game  most  of  the  summer  and  Chance 
was  struck  in  the  head  with  a  pitched  ball  and  had 
to  quit.  The  playing  of  the  Chicago  team  fell 
down  greatly  as  a  result. 

Chance  is  the  sort  of  athlete  who  is  likely  to 
get  injured.  When  he  was  a  catcher  he  was 
always  banged  up  because  he  never  got  out 
of  the  way  of  anything.  He  is  that  kind  of 
player.  If  he  has  to  choose  between  accepting 
a  pair  of  spikes  in  a  vital  part  of  his  anatomy  and 
getting  a  put-out,  or  dodging  the  spikes  and 
losing  the  put-out,  he  always  takes  the  put-out 
and  usually  the  spikes.  He  never  dodges  away 
from  a  ball  when  at  bat  that  may  possibly  break 
over  the  plate  and  cost  him  a  strike.  That  is  why 
he  was  hit  in  the  head.  He  lingered  too  long  to 
ascertain  whether  the  ball  was  going  to  curve  and 
found  out  that  it  was  not,  which  put  him  out 
of  the  game,  the  Cubs  practically  out  of  the 


298  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

pennant  race,  and  broke  up  their  "inside" 
play. 

Roger  Bresnahan  is  the  same  kind  of  a  man.  He 
thinks  quickly,  and  is  a  brilliant  player,  but  he 
never  dodges  anything.  He  is  often  hurt  as  a 
result.  Once,  when  he  was  with  the  Giants,  he 
was  hit  in  the  face  with  a  pitched  ball,  and  Mc- 
Graw  worried  while  he  was  laid  up,  for  fear  that 
it  would  make  him  bat  shy.  After  he  came  back, 
he  was  just  as  friendly  with  the  plate  as  ever.  The 
injury  of  men  like  Chance  and  Bresnahan,  whose 
services  are  of  such  vital  importance  to  the  "inside" 
play  of  a  team,  destroys  the  effectiveness  of  the 
club. 

Once,  in  1908,  when  we  were  fighting  the  Cubs 
for  the  pennant  at  every  step,  McGraw  planned 
a  bunting  game  against  Overall,  who  is  big  and  not 
very  fast  in  covering  the  little  rollers.  Bresnahan 
and  O'Day  had  been  having  a  serial  argument 
through  two  games,  and  Roger,  whose  nerves 
were  worn  to  a  frazzle,  like  those  of  the  rest  of  us 
at  that  time,  thought  "Hank"  had  been  shading 
his  judgment  slightly  toward  the  Cubs.  In 
another  story  I  have  pointed  out  that  O'Day,  the 
umpire,  was  stubborn  and  that  nothing  could  be 


Failures  of  the  "  Inside  "  Game    299 

gained  by  continually  picking  on  him.  When 
the  batteries  were  announced  for  that  game, 
McGraw  said  as  the  team  went  to  the  field: 

"We  can  beat  this  guy  Overall  by  bunting." 

Bresnahan  went  out  to  put  on  his  chest  pro- 
tector and  shin  guards.  O'Day  happened  to  be 
adjusting  his  makeup  near  him.  Roger  could  not 
resist  the  temptation. 

"Why  don't  you  put  on  a  Chicago  uniform, 
'Hank',  instead  of  those  duds?"  he  asked.  "Is 
it  true,  if  the  Cubs  win  the  pennant,  they  've 
promised  to  elect  you  alderman  in  Chicago?" 

"Get  out  of  the  game  and  off  the  field,"  said 
O'Day. 

Bresnahan  had  to  obey  the  injunction  and  Need- 
ham,  the  only  other  available  catcher,  went 
behind  the  mat.  "Tom"  Needham  never  beat 
out  a  bunt  in  his  life,  and  he  destroyed  all  Mc- 
Graw's  plans  because,  with  him  in  the  game  in- 
stead of  Bresnahan,  the  style  had  to  be  switched. 
We  lost.  Bresnahan,  a  fast  man  and  a  good  bunter 
batted  third  and  would  have  been  valuable  in 
the  attack  best  adapted  to  beat  Overall.  But  his 
sudden  demise  and  the  enforced  substitution  of 
the  plodding  Needham  ruined  the  whole  plan  of 


300  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

campaign.  Therefore,  frequently  umpires  upset 
a  team's  "inside"  game. 

One  of  McGraw's  schemes  back-fired  on  him 
when  Luderus,  the  hard-hitting  Philadelphia  first 
baseman,  broke  into  the  League.  Some  one  had 
tipped  "Mac"  off,  and  tipped  him  wrong,  that  this 
youngster  could  be  disconcerted  in  a  pinch  by  the 
catcher  discussing  signs  and  what-not  with  him, 
thus  distracting  his  attention. 

"Chief,"  said  McGraw  before  the  game,  "if 
this  Luderus  gets  up  in  a  tight  place,  slip  him  a 
little  talk." 

The  situation  came,  and  Meyers  obeyed  instruc- 
tions. The  game  was  in  Philadelphia,  and  three 
men  were  on  the  bases  with  two  out.  Ames  was 
pitching. 

"What  are  you  bringing  the  bat  up  with  you 
for?"  asked  the  "Chief"  as  Luderus  arranged 
himself  at  the  plate. 

No  answer. 

Then  Meyers  gave  Ames  his  sign.  Next  he 
fixed  his  fingers  in  a  fake  signal  and  addressed  the 
young  batter. 

"The  best  hitters  steal  signs, "  said  the  "Chief. " 
"Just  look  down  in  my  glove  and  see  the  signals. " 


Failures  of  the  "Inside"  Game    301 

But  Luderus  was  not  caught  and  kept  his  eyes 
glued  on  Ames.  He  hit  the  next  ball  over  the  right 
field  wall  and  won  the  game.  As  he  crossed  the 
plate,  he  said  to  the  "Chief": 

"  It 's  too  easy.  I  don't  need  your  signs.  They 
pulled  that  one  on  me  in  the  bushes  long  ago." 

"After  this,  when  that  fellow  bats,"  said  Mc- 
Graw  to  Meyers  later,  "do  as  exact  an  imitation 
of  the  sphinx  as  you  know  how.  The  tip  was  no 
good." 

The  trick  of  talking  to  the  hitter  is  an  old  one. 
The  idea  is  for  the  catcher  to  give  a  wrong  sign, 
for  his  benefit,  after  having  flashed  the  right  one, 
induce  the  batter,  usually  a  youngster,  to  look 
down  at  it,  and  then  have  the  pitcher  shoot  one 
over  the  plate  while  he  is  staring  in  the  glove. 

"Steve"  Evans,  the  St.  Louis  right-fielder,  tells 
a  story  of  a  fan  who  sat  in  the  same  box  at  the 
Cardinals'  park  every  day  and  devoted  most  of 
his  time  to  roasting  him  (S.  Evans).  His  favorite 
expressions  in  connection  with  Evans  were  "bone 
dead,"  "wooden  head,"  and  so  on.  He  loudly 
claimed  that  "Steve"  had  no  knowledge  of  the 
game  and  spoiled  every  play  that  Bresnahan  tried 
to  put  through.  One  day,  when  the  Giants  were 


302  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

playing  in  St.  Louis,  some  one  knocked  up  a  high 
foul  which  landed  in  this  orator's  box.  He  saw 
it  coming,  tried  to  dodge,  used  poor  judgment,  and, 
realizing  that  the  ball  was  going  to  strike  him, 
snatched  his  hat  off,  and  took  it  full  on  an  im- 
modestly bald  head.  ' '  Steve ' '  Evans  was  waiting 
to  go  to  the  bat.  He  shifted  his  chew  to  his  other 
cheek  and  exclaimed  in  a  voice  that  could  not 
have  been  heard  more  than  two  miles  away: 

"That 's  the  'gink*  who  has  been  calling  me  a 
'bone  head.'" 

"Steve"  got  a  great  laugh  from  the  crowd,  but 
right  there  the  St.  Louis  club  lost  a  patron,  for 
the  bald-headed  one  has  never  been  seen  at  the 
grounds  since,  according  to  Evans,  and  his  obitu- 
ary has  not  been  printed  yet,  either. 

"Al"  Bridwell,  formerly  the  Giants'  shortstop, 
was  one  of  the  cleverest  men  at  the  "inside" 
game  that  ever  broke  into  the  Big  Leagues,  and 
it  was  this  that  made  him  valuable.  Then  suddenly 
his  legs  went  bad,  and  he  slowed  up.  It  was 
his  speed  and  his  ability  to  bunt  and  his  tireless 
waiting  at  the  plate  to  make  all  toilers  in  the  box 
pitch  that  had  made  him  a  great  player.  He 
seldom  swung  at  a  bad  ball.  As  soon  as  he  slowed 


Failures  of  the  "  Inside  "  Game    303 

up,  McGraw  knew  he  would  have  to  go  if  the 
Giants  were  to  win  the  pennant.  He  deeply 
regretted  letting  the  gritty,  little  shortstop,  whose 
legs  had  grown  stiff  in  his  service,  leave  the  club, 
but  sentiment  never  won  any  pennants. 

"Al,"  he  said  to  Bridwell,  "I  fm  going  to  let 
you  go  to  Boston.  Your  legs  will  be  all  right 
eventually,  but  I  Ve  got  to  have  a  fast  man  now 
while  you  are  getting  back  your  old  speed. " 

"That's  all  right,  'Mac,'  "  replied  Bridwell. 
"  It 's  all  part  of  the  game. " 

He  did  not  rave  and  swear  that  he  had  been 
double-crossed,  as  many  players  do  under  the 
same  circumstances.  I  never  heard  Bridwell 
swear,  and  I  never  found  any  one  else  who  did. 
He  had  been  playing  for  weeks,  when  every  time 
he  moved  it  pained  him,  because  he  thought  he 
might  have  a  share  of  the  money  that  winning  a 
pennant  would  mean.  It  was  a  staggering  blow 
to  him,  this  sending  him  from  a  pennant  possibility 
to  a  hopeless  tail-ender,  but  he  took  it  gamely. 

"I  guess  I  was  'gumming'  the  inside  stuff,"  he 
said. 

And  he  did  get  some  of  the  prize  money.  The 
boys  voted  him  a  share. 


304  Pitching  in  a  Pinch 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  "inside  "  game  sometimes 
fails.  Many  a  time  I  have  passed  a  catcher  or 
good  batter  to  take  a  chance  on  a  pitcher,  and  then 
have  had  him  make  a  hit  just  when  hits  were  not 
at  all  welcome.  I  walked  a  catcher  once  and  had 
the  pitcher  shove  the  ball  over  first  base  for  a 
single,  when  he  closed  his  eyes  and  dodged  back 
in  an  effort  to  get  his  head  out  of  the  line  he 
thought  it  was  pursuing  before  it  curved.  In 
ducking,  he  got  his  bat  in  front  of  the  ball,  a 
result  he  had  never  obtained  with  his  eyes  open. 

Once  I  started  to  pass  "Hans"  Wagner  in  a 
pinch  to  take  a  chance  on  the  next  batter,  and 
was  a  little  careless  in  throwing  the  ball  too  close 
to  the  plate.  He  reached  out  and  slapped  it  for 
a  single.  Again  the  "inside"  game  had  failed. 

Speaking  pretty  generally,  most  managers  prefer 
to  use  this  "inside"  game,  though,  and  there  are 
few  vacancies  in  the  Big  Leagues  right  now  for  the 
man  who  is  liable  to  steal  second  with  the  bases  full. 


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OCT  1  6  2006 


